5Kevin

Aren't I clever with that title?

Kevin ran his first 5K this weekend, and it went well. The whole time he prepared for it, and during the race, while I lazed in bed with the kids, I was mostly just hoping he'd enjoy it enough to keep running and do more races.

He started at 7:00. I looked at the clock at 7:05. He'd been running 25-minute 3 milers around our hilly neighborhood so I wondered what a fairly flat course, lots of spectators and adrenaline would do for his time. At 7:22 I thought he could be done, and at 7:25 I announced to the kids that Daddy had probably crossed the finish line.

The phone rang about 7:35 and he said, "23:45. I think. I gotta check the results." The final time was 23:19 and he was fourth in his age group, missing a prize by one place! (I came in fourth in my age group in Crestline, missing a trophy by one place - ugh.) Forty-fourth overall, and there were 286 runners who finished. And one horse. Couldn't find the horse's time on the website, but I was looking for an obvious horse name, like "Buttercup" or "Sea Biscuit" or "Black Beauty". If the horse's name was, say, Walter Lipscomb, he came in ahead of Kevin.

At home later, discussing the race, he said he started at the front (Rob Dixon advice) but after one minute when he looked at the GPS and realized he was runnning a six-minute pace he had to slow down. His other favorite moment was realizing that traffic on the race route was being stopped for him. He is still annoyed by a long delay once while waiting for triathletes in our neighborhood - so he said it was nice to be on the other side of that.

When I asked if he'd do another one, he said he has to. He has a goal time. I'm glad he liked it enough to go back.