Racing!

Having kids, perhaps even more so with boys by necessity, you want them to be active and you hope that all that activity teaches them that the exercise is healthy. Harrison has always been very active riding his bike, playing at the park, participating in Little Gym as well as soccer and swim lessons. Harrison's parents haven't always been models of great health but after Tucker was born I finally found exercise that works for me and am excited to model this for my kids.

Taking the kids with me to Stroller Strides, I have lost all my baby weight plus a little extra and have gained muscle and increased my ability to participate in physical activities. This summer the kids and I participated in two of four Adventure Runs sponsored by the local running store, something totally new to me. We show up at the store where a map is posted at 6:00pm and we have an hour to hit a bunch of locations to pick up raffle tickets to win prizes at the end. You can't stroll this thing, I have to at minimum jog stretches of it while pushing 60 pounds of kids in a stroller filled with stuff in warm weather.

The first time we did it, Harrison thought "It... Was... AWESOME!!!" Just the racing around part was fun to him and he was allowed to get out and get additional tickets himself. Once the raffle got underway, he learned the concept of winning stuff with our tickets and was on pins and needles to find out when it would be our turn to win. Each time there were about 70 participants so the odds of winning are pretty good, especially as they have a kids only box to thrown raffle tickets into and I dumped a lot of ours in there in hopes he would win something.

At our first race he won a large maple doughnut (and I had to beg him to share!). At our second race I think he was the first kid to win a big frog cookie and I won an awesome Asics running shirt. The running store also sponsors a city Kids Fun Run and was raffling off a few free entries but in the end they offered them up to any kid that wanted to run it and Harrison agreed to take on the challenge!

The weekend before the run we walked over to the track at the local middle school where the race was to be held so Harrison could get a good idea what would be expected of him. Since he is four and his first race, we put him in the race that is one lap around the track, 400 meters or 1/4 mile. He rode his bike around the track and then we went home. 

The day of the race I took Tucker about 150 yards down the track to take photos of Harrison running. When the start bell sounded he was in the middle of maybe 80 kids and he ran so fast that I nearly missed him coming around as I was looking farther back. Tucker and I ran back to the finish line and waited for him to come around and almost missed him again! Dad ran around the inside of the track to cheer him on and said during the last 100 meters he definitely slowed down but when a kid started to pass him he turned on the jets, he was not going to be passed and let to eat their dust! 

Although there were no winners since it was really just a "fun run" Harrison probably finished 6th! We were so unbelievably proud of him! 

There were a lot of local business there giving away free stuff for the kids, including the local doughnut shop!

Do you remember this photo of Harrison? Ah, the boys with their dad. It's also a good reminder of how much they really look alike. Harrison is 9 months in his photo, Tucker is just shy of 12 month.