It was one of my proudest mami moments: Dreamer (age 7) and Fearless (age 5) both ran a 5k this weekend. It’s not an earth shattering accomplishment but it shows me that the family Joe and I are forming is one that is based on new, healthier principles.  Hopefully as teens, my boys will still think that waking up at the crack of dawn to go run is normal where I thought coming home from a party at the crack of dawn was.

It started because last week Joe and I ran the ING Miami; he ran the marathon and I ran the half.  Since we involve our boys as much as possible in our fitness activities they went with us to the race expo.  While there one of them asked, “where do we get the stuff for the kids race?”  When I told them there was no kids race that Sunday they were sincerely disappointed.

I feel like I need to capitalize on my children’s desire to be active.  Their afternoon is peppered with after school activities from drums, to soccer, to golf.  At some point it may be too much, but I don’t feel like I should determine that point.  When I try to take out an activity there is a small revolution in the peanut gallery.   So I retract and let them be.  Both are good students, they read books, don’t watch a lot of TV, and are very curious.   So when I told them the only race coming up was a 5k they said they wanted to try it.

Granted, they had no idea of what a 5k is.  I tried to explain it in terms of loops on the playground (about 7), bike rides we have done (from gas station to little bridge), anything that could give them a sense of distance.  I tried to scare them a bit saying it was a long way, much further than the Spartan Race or the Turkey Trot.  They insisted.  Fortunately the 5k I found was to benefit Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization and a cause that is near and dear to me.  As I have written before here, I will be riding 400 miles from Orlando to Tallahassee in April to bring awareness to this issue.  I figured if the race is a disaster or if we don’t go at least the money spent on registration would go to a great cause.  And so it was that we signed up for our first event as a family.

Wake up time was 5:30am.  Though it took a little longer for the boys to “come to”, I didn’t hear a peep about how it was dark outside, how they were tired, or how their stomach hurts.  I hear this daily Monday through Friday.  We made it out the door on time (yet another thing we can’t seem to do Monday through Friday) and off we went.  The ride was kind of quiet so I thought the boys had fallen asleep.  I turn back to check on them only to find this character:

We arrived, and as soon as I opened the car door Fearless asked me to carry him.  “I’m tired,” he complained while I thought “Seriously? You want to do a 5k and we can’t even walk across the parking lot?”  But I did carry him, in part because I am a sucker but also because I know that soon he’ll be too heavy to carry.

This was a small, informal race of about 400 walkers and runners.  Many carried signs of loved ones lost to drunk driving.   The woman who took our picture showed me a poster of her daughter with her four year old granddaughter.  Her daughter was killed a year ago.  My eyes watered because the thought of losing my child to a drunk driver is too sad to entertain, and the pain in her voice sounded as if the hurt had not gone away.

I held Fearless tighter.  We got a countdown and began the race.  “Don’t go too fast” I warned the boys who didn’t listen. We ran a little then walked a little until Fearless tripped, fell and scraped his knee.  He began to cry so Joe went ahead with Dreamer who by then was really focused on his running.   I told Fearless to suck it up and continue walking but then I thought: if this is something I want him to love and look forward to it has to be a positive experience.  “Suck it up” was not the right attitude for a positive experience.  I stopped, rubbed his knees and asked him if he wanted to stop.  Magically he replied “no, let’s run” and took off like a bullet.

I followed.  From then on Fearless was a champ.  We walked three cones, ran four cones until we reach the first mile water station.  He LOVED getting water as many of the volunteers, seeing how little he was, would cheer him on.  We arrived at a long stretch of road divided by orange cones.  You had to run to the end of it, make a U-turn and return along the other side of the cones.  Eventually we saw Joe and Dreamer who had gotten to the U-Turn and were heading back.  I asked Fearless if he wanted to turn early so we could catch up to his brother.  He immediately said “no, I want to do the whole thing.” And for the next mile Fearless barely stopped.

We could see Dreamer and Joe ahead of us.  Every time they saw us they speeded up and instead of that making Fearless upset it motivated him to go faster.  The last 400 meters were on a track.  We entered the stadium and I told Fearless I was amazed at how he did this.  He picked up the pace and ran the rest of the way.  As we approached the finish line, spectators saw this tiny little guy running his heart out and began to cheer him.  He crossed the finish line a champion.

Unfortunately there were no medals to be had but we were all beaming.  I would’ve never thought my kids, MY kids, would be running a 5k.  In fact, not long ago I didn’t think I would be running a 5k either but here we were, running as a family.

We spent the next hour or so perusing the after party.  The boys still had energy to climb a rock wall and jump around.  Their energy, their freedom, their laughter was intoxicating.

Later in the day Fearless, who has learned my cell phone number, left me this message:

Hello Mami, I love you so much, please let me have another race with you and my whole family, I love you so much. Bye

You bet this was one of my proudest mami moments.  And you bet I will say yes to his request.