Dawson's first road race

On Sunday morning, Dawson and I got up very early (well, Dawson's usual time) and headed to Corporate Woods for the annual Head for the Cure 5k benefiting brain cancer research (Erin's mom died of brain cancer when she was 13). One of the things about parenting I'd been anticipating during all those long years of waiting was jogging with my child. First with the jogging stroller, maybe later with a bike and possibly even both of us running. So Sunday was an exciting event for me.

Although it was only two weeks, I'd trained pretty hard for the race. I had the goal of breaking 25 minutes while pushing Dawson in his stroller. I was all fired up for the race but the intensity quickly turned to frustration. Those of us with strollers were instructed to start at the back of the pack, which put us behind hundreds and hundreds of walkers, people just walking the 5k for the purpose of giving money to the charity. I'm guessing most of these walkers had never run a race before, based partly upon the fact that they didn't leave the left side open for those who wanted to pass. I tried and tried to get through the crowd, even pushed the stroller on the grass for a bit, but wasn't able to break through the wall of people until after the first mile. It was quite frustrating.

But it was cool to take Dawson to the event. Since I usually need the goal of a race to motivate me to train, I was able to get back into decent shape over the past couple weeks. There was also the advantage of Dawson getting to ride alongside his godbrother, Ryder. In fact, the 5k was Franci's idea to begin with. I spent the 3.1 miles trying to convince her that if she could run a 5k, she could do the KC Half Marathon in mid-October.

Even though it took 45 minutes to complete the race, I was able to get back home, shower and get to PRMS before 10:00 on Sunday morning. Sunday night, Erin and I went to the New Theatre Restaurant to eat lots of good food and watch a great showing of The Sound of Music. With usual church activities packed into the middle of the day, Sunday was quite a long day.