Erik's First 5K!!

The highlight of my week was running a 5K with Erik yesterday!  I signed him up for it about 6 weeks ago.  I asked him and he hesitantly said yes so I jumped at the opportunity.  In the past 6 weeks we've probably only done 4-5 actual training runs but I keep Erik active on a daily basis, walking, riding bikes, soccer, etc. so he is quite capable of sustained physical activity.

Pre-race self portrait

The morning of the race he told me, "I'm NOT going!"  He is quite a bit competitive and ran a 1 mile race with me in the fall.  But I think he was a bit overwhelmed by the 3 mile length (understandably) and a little bit nervous.

 (Little pre-race attitude/nerves!)

I really didn't give him the option to back out and knew he'd be fine once the race started.


He did even better than I thought he would!  He smiled and laughed the whole way.  We only walked 2x - probably for a total of 2-3 minutes and he finished the 5K in 36 minutes.  An 11:43 minute mile (according to the race link).  Pretty impressive for a 5 year old!!

When we were coming up to the finish line people sure were hooting and hollering at him.  "Look at that little guy! I can't believe he ran it so fast!"  They were sticking out their hands for high fives.  He just kind of ignored it but I know he liked the attention. :)

Afterwards I asked if he had fun.  I got a big "Yes!"  I asked him if he'd run another race with me and he very enthusiastically said, "Yes and I'm going to beat you!"  Hahaha!

This was a pretty big race (maybe 500 runners).  I think around 75-80 kids in the 13 and under category.  There was one other 5 year old (finished at 51 minutes), no 6 year old kids, 2 seven year olds, and a handful of 8 year olds.  I think he finished before all the kids 8 and under.  (A 9 year old placed 2nd in the 13 and under category though - finishing in 24:30!!)

I am so proud of my little guy and had so much fun!  I hope this is an event we can continue to participate in.  I am really hoping to be able to run two 5K's a year with him (one in the fall, one in the spring).  If we do that I bet I won't be able to keep up with by the time he's 9-10.  We'll see!

Post-race photo!

He was excited, just camera shy!

I'm super disappointed that there are no photos of us running!

Victor ran the race too (pushing the stroller) and finished ahead of us.

He had the camera but didn't think to take a photo as we finished (and I forgot to mention it 

to him before the race).

I was hoping the race photographer would have taken one but I don't think they did.

Oh well.