October 6, 2009

A runner/triathlete in the making !?!

We signed Isabel up for the Kids Rock marathon being held in conjunction with the Las Vegas Rock and Roll marathon in December ( http://las-vegas.competitor.com/lv-kids/). The kids have to run/walk 25.2 miles at their own pace before the event, then they all meet and run the last mile together. They get a race number, t-shirt, medal, goodie bag...the whole nine yards.

She is very excited and tells anyone who will listen that she is running a marathon. (Every person then responds with... are you going to win? WHY oh why do people have to say that! Drives me crazy. Ughh!) Anyway, she's excited. We made a chart for her to keep track of her miles and decided we would tick them off in one mile increments.

Sunday night I took her out for her run and we had a blast. We ran around the neighborhood and she ran the majority of the mile with a few water breaks and a small walk break towards the end. She also talked non-stop for the entire time, she apparently was in a comfortable zone! She talked about how fun this was, how I was the BEST AUNT ever for running with her and it should be "our thing" that we do and how lots of Aunts would just sit around and never run with their nieces (very cute!). Then she mentioned she wishes this was a race where she got to do all three things like you and Izaac do. When was she going to get to do that?? I think we have a little triathlete on our hands!

The best thing about the whole experience was to witness her absolute excitement and happiness just from running. She had been in a pretty grumpy mood before we went, I think we basically forced the shoes on her. The little girl that ran with me and the one that we enjoyed the rest of the evening was a completely different person than the one we had for most of the day. She was so happy, chatty and smiley the whole rest of the evening. Made me realize that exercise is therapeutic for the kids as well. Let's hope the remainding miles go just as well :-)