School 5K

Whew - this wrap-up is late, but for the record, Helen ran her school 5K a couple of weeks ago. We spent the month of April training - and by that I mean I ran with Helen 3-4 times a week for 0.5-1.5 miles. One of our runs would take place on Saturday or Sunday and it was our "long run". Because Connor had a band trip the day of the race, he was able to escape training for the most part, but several times he ran with Helen while I was cooking dinner. That was nice!

I decided to make some of our long runs "destination runs" so we would start at our house, run to a dog park, run to the farmer's market, run to a Starbucks to get hot cocoa - something to make it so we could just get out the door and use our run to get to something else. Then, Ed would come and pick us up when we were done with whatever we had run to do. I think it worked well, and it meant we had some chatting time after our runs, which Helen and I both like.

For our last long run, it was around 90 degrees, so definitely not ideal conditions. Ed joined us as we ran most of the course (only it's a teeny bit harder than the actual course because from our house, there's an extra hill and then we skip a nice flat part of the actual course).

Running and photography is hard! Sorry to cut you off, Ed.

By the time the race arrived, I figured Helen could run it in 28:30 miles, which in my book is a pretty solid run. Helen's official time was 28:36!! I was definitely impressed with her. She worked hard. A friend of hers had decided to start training for the race 3 days before the race, so she did not have as great a race. After Helen crossed the finish line, she went back and cheered all of her friends on.

But - the absolute highlight of the event is that this friend came up to Helen and said "Helen - you were so fast! You might even win an award! You worked really hard for this. I'm so impressed with you." And that is a nice thing for anyone to say. For a 9 year old girl who is tired from running a 5K to say it impressed me a lot.

The only lowlight of the run was when a boy in Helen's class heard her coming up on him in the home stretch. He was exhausted, Helen was running hard and getting faster. He moved to the center of the path to try and block Helen out. I reminded him he needed to share the path and Helen flew by.

Officially - Helen was the first finisher in our family. Ed tried his best to catch her at the end but he just couldn't do it.

Congrats on another great 5K Helen!

Before - with my friend from the Netherlands!

During

After!

Elaine