Another Milestone Achieved!

 

Look! It's an incredibly rare family picture!

 

 

This morning, the entire family participated in the "Run Through Redlands" - a day where people willingly torture their bodies and minds to run the 5K, 10K, or the half-marathon. DaddyDude (very) reluctantly agreed to participate, only because I fretted that somebody might steal Marika along the way. So, Mika, Marika, and DaddyDude ran the 5K with Mika's soccer team. The order of finish was pretty shocking...

Yes, folks, this is little girl - who just turned eight years old last month - was the first of the three to cross the finish line (edited later to add: Marika was the first of the family to finish the 5K)! I was so proud of her! Last year, she ran it in 41:08 (that's 41 minutes and 8 seconds) and this year... she finished in 30:18! Astounding! What a huge improvement! She finished in the top 25.4% of all 5K runners and actually placed 6th out of all 59 girls her age (7-9 years old). She was devastated to learn she had missed earning a medal by one place. But look out next year! :)

Perhaps what was second most astounding was - she beat her big sister by 5 minutes! Mika came in next and beat her last year's time, but only by 1 minute, 37 seconds. Not as impressive as her little sister, but she did finish in the top 41.5% of all 5K runners.

THEN, I was shocked when DaddyDude was last to finish. I had been really worried that he'd fallen or stumbled and rendered his knees (both are bad) useless. So, I was pretty relieved when he finally showed up in one piece. :) In his defense, he didn't want to do the run (he really hates running), so it was really a show of love for Marika that he actually did it. He'll never do it again, because both girls left him in the dust (his words).

And what did I do? I ran my first ever 10K race. Now, granted, I usually run 6 miles a day, 6 times a week, but that's on a very flat course (actually, I run in circles within the neighborhood, so I'm near houses in the event I'm ever attacked, someone is bound to hear my blood-curdling screams). So, the week before the big race, I ran the actual 10K course three times. A big part of running (I learned this from cross-country in high school) is psychological - and there's nothing worse than having NO IDEA how much further you have to go. I'm so glad I did, because every time I ran the course, I got a little bit faster. Today, I trimmed off another 3 minutes off my time from two days earlier and finished the course in 50 minutes and 25 seconds.

My goal had been to break 54 minutes (but my dream goal was to break 50 minutes, something I thought was totally impossible, because this course has a couple of significant uphill stretches), so I was satisfied (on a totally flat course, I could probably have finished it in 48 minutes, to give you an idea of how running uphill really slows things down). However, I was absolutely delighted to discover - after I got home and checked my email - that my time was fast enough to earn me a second place finish for all women in my age-group (n = 52).

I was elated. For those of you who know me well, you KNOW that I love to play soccer and that 18 months ago, some bozo shoved me during a game and completely tore my ACL. I had surgery almost 16 months ago and couldn't run for the first 6 months. Today, I have a sense of achievement - that "I'm back!" and that even though my knee still feels wonky and weird most of the time, it's NOT stopping me. And last but not least - WOW, what a good feeling to know IT CAN PAY OFF when you work at something, little by little, day by day.

I may be getting older, but I'm going to fight it every step of the way!