Memorial Day Weekend, Part 2

The highlight of the day was definitely the 1K Kids Run after the 5K. Just like last year, I ran with Garrett and Trish ran with Cedar. And both Garrett and Cedar were spectacular.

Garrett, who is six and a half years old, started off by himself, and I caught up with him once the field spread out, and I ran near him the rest of the way. He paced himself brilliantly, never stopped running, put on bursts of speed when he passed people, and sprinted to the line side-by-side with Jim's eight-year-old daughter (if only I could have done as well racing Jim). Garrett covered the 1K (0.63 miles according to my Garmin) in 5:34 (8:50 pace). (Last year, he took walk breaks and finished in 7:58.) Mike Burns, who I know from the Runners World Forums, was at the race and was kind enough to snap two pictures of Garrett and me running.

I forgot to leave my watch running, but Cedar, who will be five in a month, came in two or three minutes later after running almost the entire way. She only took a few very short walk breaks. Trish said that Cedar kept repeating "Don't stop. Don't give up." over and over while she ran. Afterwards, Cedar told us that it was from Yo Gabba Gabba, a Nick Jr show that I've never watched. It was so cute! Last year, Cedar had to be carried part of the way by Trish.

Both Garrett and Cedar were very excited by the race. Garrett, in particular, is anxious to run more races with daddy. So we're probably going to take them to some of the summer track meets that start in two weeks. They run separate heats for kids (and grown-ups of various speeds) in everything from 100m to the mile. (The exact schedule of events varies week by week.) Both Garrett and Cedar would enjoy the 400m and 800m races, and Garrett would probably enjoy the mile, although four laps of a track might be more tedious than running the same distance on the road.