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First Race with My Daughter


The above is a picture of my daughter and I before we ran our first race together--the 31st Annual St. Malachi's 2-miler. There was a 5-miler as well which I will run next year alone, but this year was about running with my girl.

She was a trooper. The sun was shining, but snow still covered the unplowed portions of the earth. It was in the mid-40s, but windy off the lake. We ran down a hill into The Flats and then up a hill and across the Superior Avenue bridge which is also called the Soldiers and Sailors bridge. There were thousands of people running with us. It was amazing!

Just at the end of the bridge was the first mile marker. Even though she was already having a tough time continuing to run, she kept with it until about 400 feet after the marker. She was petering out. I remembered my first race and even though I wanted to keep running, she was begging me to walk so I gave in. Holding her hand or hooking arms to pull her along had gotten us this far when she'd wanted to give in before, but now she was slowing because she doesn't know how to breathe right, yet. I remember how that felt and it sucked. She is an awesome sprinter this one, but not much for stamina and endurance, YET! We walked back toward the bridge which meant more uphill until the middle of it. Once we got to the top, I convinced her to run a bit more. We got about 50 feet and she needed to walk again. We walked until right before we turned onto W. 25th Street again and then we sprinted, holding hands to the finish line. It was AWESOME! As we crossed, it said 29:39, but I knew we'd been faster and was looking forward to checking our chips later. We did it in 27:32...a 13:46/mi pace. She did better than I did in my first race and I couldn't be more proud of her! She finished in 9th place out of 14 runners in her age group. We finished 732 & 733 of 986 runners today.


I love my new long-sleeved T, too, and she looks adorable in hers. Her dad took this picture for us after the race when I brought her home. When he asked her if she was going to do another one, she told him she would not as this one was too hard for her. I think she'll do it again. Next time, though, I think 1 mile will be just enough. Many 5k races have 1 mile fun walks with them. So, we'll see how quickly I can get her to forget the pain and embrace the fun!

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