Running? huh? me? ... oh boy, read on!

Hey Nerds,
Back in September I was boasting about trying out running, and how I led Matthew to have confidence to push himself.  And now it's time for an update on that...

Did I stick to doing running in the last 5 weeks?

So, as I said in one post, I held Matthew's hand all the way around the track to show him that, yes, he can keep running the whole track!  Can you believe that after JUST that one time doing that with him, he skyrocketed with his endurance?  Just a couple practices after that day we went running at Malden Park.   I set a specific point on the path where we would take a break, ....
and when I got to that point, Matthew said "no, I think we can keep going".  This went on around the whole perimeter of the course:

Me: "hey, do you need to stop?"
Matthew: "No"
Me: "How about now?"
Matthew: "No"
Me: "Don't burn yourself out, stop if you have to" (at this point I was asking more for myself!)
Matthew: "You can stop if you need to, I'm going to keep going"

I couldn't believe it!  a few days before I had to challenge him and now I was the one being challenged.  I kept up running with him (behind him actually).  Finally we got back to the car.  Guys, we did 3 km without stopping... we ran for 19 minutes straight.  I don't want you to go calculate the minutes per km, or think "so what you ran 3 km"... I want it to sink in that this precious boy wouldn't run more than 30 meters before stopping for a break, and now he ran for 3 km without stopping.  I was so proud of him (and me because I wanted to stop several times!).

We went running 1-2 more times together.  Then one night I said "ok, get ready, let's go run".  Matthew: "No, I'm already running everyday at school".  Er... good point.  So, maybe I can go out and run on my own? ....

Nah.....My only motivation was to go do it for Matthew's sake.  Not really interested.
Well, that was a short journey into running for myself.  But enough about me.

Matthew had his city-wide Cross Country meet yesterday.  I took the afternoon off to cheer him on.  The weather was great - sunny at least, but a bit chilly... nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year.  Matthew did good, falling in about the middle of the race with probably 80 grade 4 boys.  He felt proud of himself afterwards and is already thinking of trying out for Track and Field in the spring.

I did it!

Added bonus for laughs, my younger son Michael is a 'roaster'... he's good at picking up on a trait of yours and exposing it, and he's witty.  So, after I took the photo where I'm "thinking" of running, he decided to imitate me.  It's quite funny, maybe makes me feel embarrassed too!

This is what my mommy looks like