Last saturday I was prepared to do a local 5k. The morning of the race, my 9 year old daughter announced she wanted to do the race. Her longest run to this point was only 1 mile. I decided to run with her rather than doing the race myself. We crossed the tape in 40 mins, her third from last and me second from last. (she out-sprinted me at the tape) While this was not my PR, I felt really good about this decision. She even got a medal in her age group.
Triathlon can be such a selfish sport. Don’t forget to take the chances to be with your kids when you can - it is time well spent. As a bonus for me, I feel like I am off the downer I was on. Maybe I got as much out of this as she did.
My son is 5 and he is very interested in the races I’m always dragging the family to… I think 5 is a little young but I can’t wait to do some with him in the near future. Awesome story.
You will love it. No amount of advance coaching on pace sunk in. The gun goes off and boom - she takes of running way too fast. I asked her to slow down and she said she was just too excited to slow down. 400 yards later we are walking with the side stitches. I had to encourage her all the way to just keep moving. At two miles she said, with a tear, that she wanted to quit because this was just too hard. I told her if it was easy, it would not be worth doing.
Long story short, we are going to do another one in two weeks. We might even train some for this one. Her 6 year old sister is ready to toe the line as well. I just hope the finish the race in their birth order, or there will be trouble in the Parr residence.
Great story, since I started running, my 2.5 y/o now wants to run every where. my wife even has been drawing lines in the sand at the beach then he lines up, waits till someone says go and he is off. =]
I was 4 when my Dad entered me in my first 1 mile fun run. Fostering good exercise habits in our youth is very important and I bet your child will be far more likely to exercise as an adult because of your positive encouragement.
When my son was 11 or 12 he decided to come and watch me run a local 5km. At registration he suddenly decided that he wanted to run the race despite the fact he wasn’t really dressed for it or had ever done this kind of running before. I signed him up and since he had never done anything like this before, gave him the usual fatherly type advice and told him to pace himself and not start out to fast.
Well, he actually led the race - for the first 300m or so. Of course he burned out and starting walking. When I caught up I told him to just take it easy and enjoy. Of course his race was sprint - walk - sprint - walk. Still it was fun waiting for him at the finish line.
I loved reading your story, looks like you had one of those moments of true happiness, there aren’t many of those around
Just a word of caution about running and children that age. Running such long distances at such a young age can be detrimental to children. So another 5k in 2 weeks might be a little too much. Even another 5k in 2 years might be too much.
and here I thought it was the govt unleashed your super hero powers!
My 10 year old son ran his second Race for the Cure yesterday. He asked me last spring if he could run with me, I got him a running hat and he asked for elastic laces because he saw me pulling my shoes on once. Last summer, I entered him in a kid’s duathlon, held during a local tri. After he finished, we sat on the curb with my older son and watched all the adult bikers coming in to T2. I spotted Ken Lehrner’s bike in the distance (he’s not hard to spot) and my sons screamed, “Go Ken!!!” when he went by. I still don’t know if Ken knows what kids were cheering for him.
Thanks for the advice. I worried about that myself. Thankfully a 40 min 5k allowed for a lot of walking. Is there a rule of thumb for when kids can run?
I’m not sure I agree with the first paragraph but the last paragraph sums it up well. As parents it is our responsibility to be a great coach and watch very closely.
I think it is one thing to do short fun runs every now and again… I worry more about middle and high school where coaches tend to run the kids into the ground. I know so many talented young athletes that can’t run now because they did way too much mileage at a young age…
My advice to my kids: Go into it like you are going to peak when you are 35, not 18. My challenge: getting them to understand that statement.
