Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Onward

I'm sure I say this every year, but it's difficult for me to grasp that this is the last day of 2014. There have been so many great milestones this year and I am so thankful for the ability to be active and to teach my children to be active as well. 

Someone asked me the other day what was the last race I had done and I realized that my last three races of the year had been with my girls and my husband. I can't even put into words how much fun it has been to run as a family. While I haven't had much of a chance to work on my own goals at the end of 2014, I have been able to help my young daughters work on and reach their goals. That has given me more pleasure than anything I could accomplish on my own. 

I've been sick for the majority of November and December so I was more than happy to run with my six year old daughter at our last race of the year, The Dam Jingle Bell Run. My husband ran with our nine year old daughter who was excited to run at a smaller race and hopefully earn a 5k PR, even though the course would be hillier than her last two races. 

Kylie needs constant motivation when running, otherwise she will just walk. It seems that Mom knows exactly how much running she can handle and how to motivate her best. We talked along the way and she enjoyed passing by the top runners on their way back to the finish line. We also got to see Sydney and Scott on their way back in before we hit the turn around. Like the Mermaid Run we used visual references to mark how far we would run and how far we would walk. When we reached the crest of the last hill and could see the finish line I told her we had to run all the way in, and she did! Kylie earned a 6+ minute PR. She placed 5/10 of her age group, also being the youngest runner out of all 10 girls! 

When we reached the finish line we found out that Sydney ran the course in 30:33 for a 3+ minute PR! This was when I realized I had a new training partner. She's pretty close to my best 5k time, and I have no doubt she end will up faster than me in 2015. She came in 4th in her age group which was 9-12 years old. Pretty good considering 1st-3rd were all older than her. 

Sydney and I recently went out on our first run together. We ran two miles along the Moraga trail and had a great time. I'm looking forward to many years of some girl time on the trails. 


Post race treats! 



Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Mini Mermaid Running Club!

I was waiting to blog about our MMRC 5k until we got the professional photos back, which took longer than I expected.

We were up super early, and I love that my kids never complain about having to get up early on race morning. We agreed that Scott would run with Sydney since she really wanted to earn a PR and she also really wanted to run the entire distance without walking. I would run with Kylie and hopefully motivate her to run more than walk.

Kylie and her friends started out pretty hard and none of them wanted to run with their parent. This left me running back and forth between 3 six year olds. They were having so much fun though and you could tell they were soaking up the energy along the course. Kylie ran about half of the course with one of the other Mom's and I stayed mostly in front of them to try and keep Kylie motivated. Eventually the Mom went to run with her daughter and it was just Kylie and I. Around the two mile mark she began to talk about having to do another lap. When I explained to her that we only had to do one lap of the course, her entire attitude changed and she started to run more. We set visual markers as goals, "we'll start running at the next garbage can" and "we'll walk after 5 garbage cans". This strategy worked well for her, she didn't really seem to believe me when I told her we were getting close to the finish line, but when she saw Scott and Sydney cheering her on, she knew she was close and she sprinted all the way to finish line. Kylie ended up with a 23 minute 5k PR.



So very proud of her
After we crossed the finish line I was amazed to hear that Sydney had a 4:26 5k PR as well. Scott simply ran behind her and let her set the pace. She ran a 33:49 and now has aspirations to run a sub 30 5k. I guess this means once I get healthy, I'm going to have to start taking her running with me. 

Love this photo of her! 
We also ran the Turkey Trot this year with the kids, So I'll post more about that next time!