This year at school, Jack joined a running team for boys only, called Let Me Run. Aside from learning running techniques, the boys learned some valuable lessons about teamwork, discipline, doing one's best, motivation, and respect. They met twice a week for seven weeks, with the final goal of running a 5k that they would complete with a running buddy, which turned out to be... me. Thankfully, the week the boys started training, a gym opened on the top floor of my building, so I've been working out pretty much every day on my lunch hour, prepping for the big day. Finally, race day came. Here we are, psyched and ready for the race:
We had the best of all possible weather situations -- cool, dry, and clear. What wasn't the best situation was the number of hills we had to run up and down. Oy vey. What was great was that the town really turned out to support all the runners. Thousands of people were running and probably just as many were cheering us on. We started in downtown Elgin and wound our way through the historic district, ran alongside a beautiful park, then ended up back downtown. We were cheered on the whole way, sometimes by people lining the street or standing in their driveways, sometimes just by a single person clapping and telling us that we could do it. And we did! I accomplished my two goals of 1) not dropping dead in front of my son, and 2) finishing the race. We even got a respectable time of 37 minutes, a little over Jack's goal time of 32 but I don't think he had considered the hills either (they are EXHAUSTING). Here's a pic of the running team:
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