Do Not Disturb: Runner In Training

My daughter Sam is five... though of course she would tell you that's not true.  "I'm five and a half," she would insist.  And for a little over a year, she's had front row seats to her dad's marathon training.

She's seen it all.  She's seen me with sore legs, barely able to walk.  She's seen shirts ruined from bloody nipples.  She's seen me have to lie on the floor writhing in pain, and she's even used the roller on my calves.

So of course there's only one question on her mind:

"Daddy, when can I run a race?"

I didn't really know if there was any age minimum to running  races, but since there had been snow on the ground at the time, and since her birthday was in the spring, I told her she could run one when she turned six.

Initially I figured I'd just take her down to a local 5k and do a run/walk, hoping the race coordinators wouldn't abandon the finish line before we made it back. We have a trail near us that is a near perfect 3.1 miles (down and back) so it made for a perfect training venue.  But the one time I brought her down there, she fizzled out rather quickly and spent the bulk of the time on daddy's shoulders.

Then I remembered that the first half-marathon I ran last year in Cheshire, CT had a kids race before it.  So I looked it up, and her age group would run one lap around a high school track.  PERFECT!  

So far the only hurdle I've had to cross came when she realized that the race itself was 6 days before her sixth birthday.

"But dad, you said I had to be six," she observed.

"I think that's close enough," I offered.  "I'll let you run anyway."

She has been so excited ever since, and not a week goes by that she doesn't ask how many more days until her race.  She keeps asking me if she is going to get a medal like mine, but I don't really know if they give them out to the kids.  So, if she doesn't get one... I guess I'll just have to give her mine.  

I gotta be honest... I like my medals.  Sam knows this and she steals them all the time.  My Ft. Lauderdale Marathon medal is sitting on her bedpost right now, and on numerous occasions I've found my NYC Marathon medal missing, once finding it hung up in her closet.  Medal thief!

So the other day we went down to the track for our first training run.  Living up in the northeast, we have been bombarded with snow this past winter and I wasn't sure if they would have cleared the track.  We got there, and of course it hadn't been cleared and we had to go for Plan B:  Ice Cream!!!

No, that wasn't Plan B, although it would have likely been Plan C if I had to go that far.

Plan B was to hit the trail near us.  I parked my car and we got out on the trail.  The trail has distance marked in meters on the ground, and so I told Sam that her race was going to be 800 meters.  Of course, one lap around the track is only 400 meters, but I figured that telling her it was twice as long would get her to run at least that far.  With that, she took off sprinting down the trail.

She lasted longer than I thought she would at that pace.  I caught up to her around 300 meters when she had dramatically slowed.  Then, at around 500 meters, she stopped completely and decided she needed a break.

It didn't take her long until she saw the "600" meter sign on the ground.  She liked counting the numbers on the way up and I made her do the math to figure out she only had 200 more meters to go.  At that news, she took off once more as fast as she could go.

It wasn't long until I caught up to her.  "Seven hundred!" I announced, as we passed the marker.  I  could tell she was getting tired again, but this time I kept going.  "Sam, I can see the 800 marker - it's right up there!"

"Where, Dad?"

"I'll show you."

I kept running all the way to the marker, with her dropping back about 50 yards.  I could tell she was struggling, but I cheered her on.  I have to hand it to her, she battled fiercely for those last fifty meters.  She pushed and pushed, even though I could tell she wanted to stop.

Eventually she reached the 800 mark to my great elation and fanfare.

But Sam... she hit that 800 meter mark on the road and stopped still, not wanting to take a step more than what she had to do.  She was breathing heavy and grabbed her throat.  "Dad," she said.  "It hurts."  Of course I just had to take a picture:

"I know it hurts, kiddo," I said, smiling and patting her on the back.  "But that's why running is so great.  You pushed yourself and you did it."

She gave me a look as if to tell me I was crazy.  For a moment, I thought that maybe my pushing her could have been too much.  The last thing I wanted to do was to put too much pressure on her so that she hated running.

So, we started walking back to the car, and we just talked about running - about how she should conserve her energy by running slow at first.  We practiced running slow a bit, and she seemed to get a better grasp of the concept.

"And when everyone else starts off too fast," I coached, "you'll save your energy.  Then, when they get tired, you'll zoom right past them."

She liked that idea.  She thinks she's going to win the race, and she really wants a medal.  We got back to the start of the trail near the car.  

"Dad?" Samantha asked.

"Yes."

"I want to run back to the 800, and then walk back, and then run back to the 800 again."

I laughed.  "Ok."

So instead of getting into the car, we turned back around and started running again.  Together.