The Race

As the months count down to B’s high school graduation, I often find myself a bit teary eyed thinking about my son leaving home.  I am not ready for him to go.  I am going to miss seeing him each day, sending him off to seminary in the morning, and hugging him goodnight each night.   For me, every moment is now precious and I want to create as many memories as I can to hold on to when he is gone.

As my running buddy and I trained for our first 2 half marathons we developed a great friendship that was more rewarding than actually running the races.  Because of that, I realized that training and running with B would be an opportunity to spend time together and create some wonderful memories.  So, last spring, I asked him if he wanted to run a half marathon with me and he agreed.  Every other Saturday, through the summer, we ran our long runs together.  While we were running, I made a conscious decision to keep our conversations far from topics that could potentially end up confrontational.  Trying to get a teenage boy to talk isn’t always easy, but he did talk and we had some fun conversations as well as some more serious ones.  We got to talk about his strengths as an individual, the good things he is doing, and the potential he has to do amazing things with his life.  He also got to teach me about running.  He’s a great running coach.  Because he is so much faster than I am, I was always the one holding us back.  That created a wonderful opportunity for him to be the motivator, supporter and encourager.  Some of my favorite memories of this experience will be the many times he looked back on a hill to say, “Pump your arms more Mom and run on your toes.  You can do it.  Just dig deep.  Come on Mom.”  Or out on the flat when I would check our pace and we would be under 8 minutes/mile and I would say, “B, you are running my legs off” and he would reply with, “You can do it Mom.  Just keep up with me until we get to… and then we’ll slow down some.”  He taught me about how focusing on the number of steps to each breath in/out could help me push myself and monitor my performance level.  I can’t believe how much faster I became over the course of the summer because of his coaching and encouragement.

September 6^th was the big day…The Lake Placid Classic Half Marathon.  We drove up to B and L’s house Friday evening and then we all drove over to Lake Placid Saturday morning for the race.   R couldn’t come with us because he had to stay home for a football game but the girls came to cheer us on, and so did B and L. Mom and Dad extended their stay at B and L’s house so that they would be there for the race too.  That meant a lot to me.  You are never too old to want to have your parents watch you perform and be proud of you.

At the Olympic Skating Oval Before the Race

The Starting Line

At one point I had asked B if, when it came time for the race, if he just wanted to run it at his own pace?  He told me “no”, he was going to run it with me.  I had hoped that he would choose to run with me but if he wanted to try it for himself, I wanted him to have that opportunity.

We're Off

At 9 am we took off.  The course was beautiful with one really long down hill, some rolling hills through a canyon, and then a long and steep uphill at the end.

Coming down the big hill at mile 2.5

B got caught up in the moment (and because my pace is so easy for him) he really started pushing me.  I was wearing my GPS watch that tracked our pace and he was checking with me, quite often, to see how we were doing.  Our goal was to finish in under 2 hours.  I was pretty sure I could do it since, 2 weeks before the race, I had gone out on a Saturday, for a run, and ran 13.1 miles in 1:59:50.  On the day of the race, I was hanging in there and we were setting a really good pace until mile 10 and then I started dying.  We had to run 4 miles out through the canyon and then turn around and come back.  

Running in the canyon

High Five-ing our cheering team

On the way back, it was a head wind the whole way.  I was getting pretty tired and frustrated, but B kept trying everything he could think of to help.  He was awesome.  He tried drafting me, and when I kept complaining that it wasn’t working, he just kept encouraging me and trying again.  Finally he said, “Here, get in front of me” and then he ran behind me shouting encouragement.

 I was really intimidated by the final hill.  My legs were shot.  I just didn’t know how I was going to get up it.  As I was expressing these concerns to B, he kept telling me to dig deep and I could do it.  About half way up the hill and with more than another tenth of a mile to the top my pace was down to 12 minutes and 30 seconds per mile, a speed that we had been walking at earlier.  At that point I decided I might as well walk.  I told B that I was going to walk to the top of the hill and then I would run the last tenth of a mile to the finish.  He said, “Okay, I’ll see you at the top" and took off.  As I crested the hill, I saw him sprinting for the finish.  His time was 1:53:26

Enough energy left to leap over the line

I took off running again and finished at 1:54:40, 5 minutes and 20 seconds faster than what I had run on post and 26 minutes faster than my fastest previous race time. I was 6th out of 22 in my age group.

Pain 

More pain

B was grinning from ear to ear in all of the pictures we took after the race.  It was great.  The best part was that he ended up placing 2^nd in his age group.  He actually passed one of the people in his age group when he sprinted up the hill, earning him that 2^nd place finish.  I was so happy for him.  I told him that winning that award was his reward for service…for running and supporting his Mom.  What an awesome 1^st half marathon experience for him.  The day couldn’t have gone better.

I doubt that I will ever run that fast again and that is okay.  The time I turned in on this race was a team effort and I owe it all to my son!  He is the best running coach and best encourager.

Eating some BBQ after the race 

Belly is full, time for a nap

The making of an engineer

I have no idea exactly what P will choose to study when she goes off to college one day but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something to do with science, math, or engineering.

Last Christmas I got a salad spinner.  After using it the first time I found her with it, in the kitchen, intently studying it.  She was taking it apart and studying the pieces, putting it back together and pushing the button to make it spin, then taking it apart again and studying the pieces.  She wanted to talk to me about how it worked.  You can't actually see into the mechanism that makes it spin although she wanted to.  When we couldn't get at it, she then just developed her own theories on how it worked.

Today, I found her at the sink with the top to her water bottle.  (It is a pop top cap.)  She had the cap held in place at the top of the bottle but upside down on the bottle.  She was tipping the bottle over and studying the cap.  I asked her what she was doing and she said, "figuring out how the cap works."

The Last 4 Months - Family Reunion Part 2

Besides a lot of sight seeing, we also enjoyed time just hanging out together.

One rainy day we loaded up and went to the indoor track.  There we entertained ourselves for several hours with basketball,

volleyball,

some races,

and just hanging out together

The boys had fun with technology,

and the girls entertained us with their skits.

We enjoyed the 4th of July concert

and some even participated in the sing along down in front of the stage.

Since it may be a while before we have the opportunity to ALL be together at one place again, (missions and college are just around the corner for some of us) we took advantage of the opportunity to take a family picture.

I sure was sad to see it all come to an end.  It had been a great week.

The Last 4 Months - Family Reunion Part 1

I have to write this in 2 posts because there are too many pictures to put in 1.

At the end of June through the 4th of July, we hosted a family reunion.  I should have taken pictures of each bedroom in our house because we had 17 people sleeping in our house and 19 people eating here.  (Grandma and Grandpa stayed in a local hotel.)  I was pleasantly surprised to see how well our house accommodated everyone.  We even had space in the dining room for everyone to sit down together for dinner.  Everything went so well and we had so much fun, we wish that we could do it again every year.

Here is what we did:

A trip to NYC that included...

 lots of subway rides,

 a visit to the World Trade Center Memorial,

 a ride on the Staten Island Ferry for a view of the Statue of Liberty, (yes, there was a story behind this picture)

 some resting of weary feet in Central Park,

 a pose on the Alice in Wonderland Statue,

 watching of the sailboats on the Conservatory Water,

 a cousin picture by the Reservoir,

 dinner at The Shake Shack, and a trip to Time Square but I forgot to take pictures of those two stops.

We also enjoyed story telling and s'mores around the fire pit in our yard.

We also took a trip to the Bear Mountain Zoo,

 where some of us road the carousel.

A group made a trip to the Crayola Factory and to Carlos' Bakery, and there was golfing but I didn't get pictures of those activities since I stayed home ... (to go grocery shopping which I had to do almost every day since my refrigerator was not designed to store food or that many people.)

To be continued....