Me and my boy

So, Brady (my 10 year old) has always been athletic.  Very athletic.  He ran my first 5K with me (my husband did as well)...beat me by 21 seconds.  Then we ran another one together on Thanksgiving day, a turkey trot 5K.  Again, he beat me.  But only by 4 seconds!  He has recently asked if he can run the upcoming 5 mile road race with me.  I said yes because I know he has it in him.

We went down to the trail a little over a week ago and ran 4.26 miles.  I was so proud of him!  He did really well and we came in just over a 10:30 pace.  Usually, the trail is a little slower so I figured that was a great time!  The better thing was that he didn't want to cut out early.  He really, really wanted to make it!

Yesterday, we went and ran on the trail again.  We were hoping to get in just over 4.5.  It was close to 4 pm and warm, about 80 degrees.  We took some gatorade prime before the run and off we went.  The beginning went pretty well, a little slow, but we needed to get into a rhythm.  Then about mile 1.5, he felt great.  Said he was in the zone.  I was so glad for him...although I wasn't in the zone.  It was tough with the heat and I was exhausted from little sleep and a garage sale all day that I had.  But I would never let my kids see me quit!  About mile 2.5 he was struggling.  He was really hot and he said his knee was bothering him.  Did some extra walking, tried to run again, but it was just not in the cards for him.  We ran 2.97 miles.  We walked the rest of it to home 2.04.

He kept apologizing to me, but really I didn't care that we were walking.  I was just glad to have a companion, good conversation and my son by my side.  Our time on our run wasn't great, but wasn't horrendous considering he wasn't feeling all that great.  We ran it in 11 min/mile.  All in all, we got 5 miles in running and walking and even with that, we would've finished in 1:05.  I know he'll be ready to go in 2 weeks!  I'm going to give us a goal of 55:00 (just because the last .3 is all up hill).  I'm not going to tell him the goal, but that's what it is in my head.

We have 2 weeks to finish out the training...just me and my boy!  Love him!