A 5K Fourth of July!

The day dawned early and we were up and getting ready to run the first race of our careers, the 5K. The 8 year old, the 6 year old and the 5 year old coaxed their dear old dad to run with them and we were off to the races!!!

These 3 buttons were the races youngest contenders. They were mighty proud to pin on their race numbers and line up at the back of the pack. There were some serious "out-for-blood" runners in the race and then there were some that had definitely just showed up to run with no training or serious thought about it.

The girls were briefed as to the water stations and looked forward to being able to "stop" at the 2 of them to take a break. When the time came there was no stopping and much to their disgust people where throwing their cups on the ground!!!! NO WAY - LITTERING!!! They were aghast. Seriously, their Baba had to command them to throw down their cups, otherwise they would have run the rest of the race with cups in hand! Too funny. I assured them later that the water station people gladly picked up all the cups and not a cup was left, it was the rule of the race....don't know if they really believed me though.

After tailing them for the start of the race and making sure they made it up "Killer Mountain" where I was afraid littlest button would take a fall and seeing blood not be able to continue the race (which of course she did fall but having been told to wear capri's and gloves the knees and hands were saved from injury and she went on unscathed) we wiggled into the middle of the race course to meet them at a corner to cheer them on. My Beloved was so happy to see Top Button and I as they came around that corner. He said it gave everyone an energy boost and they sprinted to go past us giving us thumbs up.

It was the perfect weather for the race and even one family had a sprinkler on the coarse to coll down the runners who wanted to run through it. The kids enjoyed their time. They enjoyed most seeing their rooting section pop up around corners where we could get to the race coarse. They knew when the end was near and they put their all into it to cross that finish line with their time recorded. Second Button was first in our group and then littlest Button, then Baba, lastly Sweetpea. Their best training time for a 5K has been 50 minutes. On race day they all came in under 38 minutes, which was Sweetpea's time. What great progress, all new personal bests!

After the race they indulged in liquid refreshment and bananas.......the reward of champions. Then we went to the parade and had an excellent but quiet 4th of July. They are already talking about their next race and planning how they are going to do it differently. We will have to see, this racing thing can get out of hand and poor Baba will have to really start loving running to encourage such optimism.

We missed the fireworks as everyone was ready for bed long before sunset. This year we only dreamt of pyrotechnics.