Last Saturday, my kids had their first race experience, well, first race experience since they were very young. I tried the whole wife who brings the kids to watch their daddy race thing, but I found it just wasn’t my style. The two times I did it included a triathlon where I chased Princess Lea on a beach that geese were using as a litter box and a 5K that involved packing up a newborn baby Skywalker and toddler Princess L and all of their stuff: bottles, blankies, burp cloths, strollers, snacks, hats, sunscreen, toys, oh yeah, and diapers. (What mom forgets those? This one.) By the time I had all that collected, loaded both kids in the car, drove to the race, unpacked all the stuff, got the stroller out and walked over to the finish, we got there just in time to see Daddy cross. There were plenty of cute, young moms there doing the same thing with make-up on and hair coiffed, and I stood there with my eyes half opened and a messy ponytail, wondering if I thought to brush my teeth before we left.
After that, I decided it would be much easier to just run in the race myself.
So after about three years or so of running in little road races here and there (and getting no faster, mind you . . . meanwhile, Darth Vader has run himself back in time, his biggest competition often being local high school cross country teams), the perfect circumstances arose for the kids to come to a race. It was a 5K in downtown Akron with the proceeds from the race going to a worthy local scholarship fund. Luckily, Grandpa and Nana agreed to take charge of the kids. Now if there were any two people that you would want to watch over your kids while in downtown Akron, Grandpa and Nana are the people to do it. Between the two of them, I think they knew everyone there, including every law enforcement officer, the mayor, and a priest, and if your kids get lost in downtown Akron, I would think all three of these would come in handy.
The kids were sort of bewildered when we first arrived. Princess Lea I think understood, but Skywalker seemed pretty impressed with the large amount of people who had gathered in their running clothes that day. “He goin’ runnin’, Daddy? She goin runnin’, too?” he asked as we made our way to the registration tables. Meanwhile, the voice of one of my best friends echoed in my head: “Oh man! I HATED having to go to my dad’s races when I was a kid. We always had to get up at the crack of dawn and dress in layers, and stay for the stupid awards. Ugh. It was awful!” Okay, so yes, I made them get up early, and yes, they did have on an extra layer, but they were cold! At least we don’t normally stay for awards. I was one for three, that’s close enough I guess.
We registered, deposited the kids with the grandparents, and we were off. As I ran, I thought about the kids and how I want them to above all be healthy. It would be great if they eventually embraced running as a hobby or a supplement to whatever sport they decide to take up, but I don’t want them to hate it or resent it because it’s something their parents do or force them to attend. I should mention now that my thoughts are never fluid when I’m running. I suffer from runners’ ADD. I’ll be in a zone, thinking about kids, their future, being healthy or trying to work over some other problem in my head, all of a sudden it’s: “Man, it is HOT!!” or “How in the world is that 65-year-old woman passing me?” or “I hope this chic next to me likes Jay-Z as much as I do because she doesn’t have an iPod and my music is super loud," and then I spend the next few minutes trying to figure out the thing I was thinking about in the first place. It’s mind boggling. For real.
As I finished, I met up with my family. Skywalker was clapping, smiling and, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy-ing,” but Princess Lea was not. She was stone faced. I thought she might cry. She was scared, I could tell, but I couldn’t imagine about what. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked. There was no response, just more blank staring.
“Uhhh, I think she saw a couple of guys throwing up when they were done,” Darth Vader offered. People who run Vader’s speed do that, and maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t see the point of choosing to push yourself so hard that you barf. Just sayin’.
It ended up that the witnessing of “spitting up,” in Princess L’s terms, is what caught her attention. It may have scared her at first, but it definitely opened up the avenue of communication about running in general. She asked a bunch of questions of Darth Vader right then and there, and later on had even more to ask me. Hopefully someday she won’t be talking to a friend on the phone reminiscing about how her parents used to drag her to races where she had to watch people yak after pushing themselves to the brink of exhaustion. Hopefully, she’ll take this little nugget of interest and in her own way and on her own terms, discover a path of making healthy decisions that works for her.
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