Happy early Valentines day. No better way to celebrate then a run with my son and a good friend right. Another 3W race that G and I earned by volunteering at another event. I really dig free races especially when I'm paying for 2 people to run . They can get spendy and the bigger races don't offer the work a race, get a race deal. I'll volunteer all the time to foster my sons love of running and score us some free races.
3W did a fabulous job at this race too. Seriously if you're ever in Colorado and looking for a race 3W is amazing. Super friendly people, wonderful atmosphere, awesome race swag. It's just a super fun experience. I got a text from my running friend about 20 minutes before the start saying she was coming to race. YEAH !!! Oh happy day. Usually G leaves me in the dust so the thought of having a buddy to run with is awesome. Diane showed up about 10 minutes before the start to do a quick registration and drop off her stuff and then we of course had to take some fun group photos with the props before they got super busy post race. I'm not gonna lie, the photo prop area is probably my all time favorite spot at every race. I'm a photo junkie if you can't tell.
My awesome race crew.
Diane. G and Me
He's rocking my heart socks. What a trooper
When we got to the race it was COLD. I was worried we wouldn't be dressed warm enough but boy was I wrong. True to Colorado weather, it warmed up about 30 degrees in a span of 30 minutes. I only wish I was kidding. By the time the race was ready to start I was wishing I'd had a tank top and left the leggings at home. I did ditch the gloves and ear warmer though. It was a beautiful morning for sure.
Me and Diane at the start line.
As usual G wanted to start up near the front. I let him knowing it probably wasn't the best plan for him but he's 9 so.... we mom's pick our battles right. It's a smaller race but once again I knew a ton of people here working the race and felt totally comfortable with him being out there on his own . Plus it's an out and back so I knew I'd see him on the course at least once.
See that red shirt right in the front row ? Yup that's G
Trying his best to hang with the big guys.
I stuck with Diane for about a mile and then up ahead I saw G walking. Mom instincts kicked in and I took off running to catch him . He's been fighting a cold and I had a feeling he would have a tough time at this race especially if he took off to fast like he usually does. He needs to work on pacing himself but as a runner myself I know how hard that can be at a race. I have my training pace and then I have a race pace that sort of comes out of nowhere and leaves me with that " how the heck did I go that fast ?" feeling.
Once I caught up with him I knew he was struggling. I didn't want him to get discouraged so I said we would do intervals together. He's not much of an interval runner but welcomed it today. We did 1:15/45 and just took the rest of the race slow. I'm proud of him, he did every interval and was starting to feel better and even able to pick up some speed. I let him set the pace because I want him to enjoy himself most of all. Racing should always ALWAYS be fun. At least that's what I think.
He ran with me the rest of the race unit he could see the finish and then he took off like lightning and left me in the dust. Proud mom just cheered him on and watched those little legs fly to the finish. Even with the issues and having to walk he busted out a 10 min pace.
We loaded up on chocolate milk, bananas, yogurt and granola while we waited for the results. 3W doesn't mail out awards so you must be present to win. While we waited for the awards to start we checked out the donation drawing board. If you brought an in kind donation of 4 cans of food. you got to be part of a drawing for some goodies. G won a massage . Lucky duck !! I tried to trade someone for something else because lets be real, a massage for a 9 yr old is just not cool. Sadly all the stuff he would have liked was gone. I did give him $10 for his massage certificate so he did get something out of it and I got a $10 hr massage. Score us !!
As we are waiting for what feels like ages we hear them announcing different age groups. They are sort of bouncing back and forth between male, female and different age groups. So weird and not at all how they normally run the show. I finally asked a few of the gals and they said they had some tech difficulties. Oh no, that's never a good thing to hear. Apparently they had a glitch in the timing pad and lost a chunk of times. Sadly G and I had been in that batch of people who got lost. We waited for over an hour and they finally said that if we placed they would get us our medals and we could take off.
Technical issues happen more often than not. I as an adult just roll with it but a 9 yr old who is sure he placed, it's hard to swallow. Trying to explain it to him was tough. As an adult I just wanted him to roll with it and not let it upset him but as his mom, my heart hurt for him. At 9 it's a big deal if you win. At 9 you don't really understand how all that stuff works and you just think " I placed, I want my medal " . I knew he was pretty upset and what makes it harder was this was his birthday race ( his birthday is tomorrow ) and he wanted a medal to take him to show his dad. Ah buddy I am so sorry . We went to Red Robin for lunch together. Doesn't fix the no medal in hand thing but might have helped a little. I hope anyway.
The drama only got worse. I received an email later that night asking what we wore to the race and if we had any pictures of us. Both of us had been in the glitch so we didn't get timed crossing the finish line. It was almost like we didn't run it at all . Super sad. Thankfully I'm a picture freak and have a ton so I was able to email them our pictures so they could try and find us in their pictures and see if they could get our times. G kept asking me if he placed and I just kept saying " they haven't emailed me yet " . My heart hurt for him. I knew he would be so bummed if he didn't place. I tried to ease it up a bit telling him that he was in a bigger age group ( 1-14 ) and that a whole team of cross country kids ran that race.
*update*
Finally on Monday I heard back from them telling me they found us and that G did indeed place 3rd in his division. YEAH !! He will be so excited when I tell him . They are going to mail his medal to us and he can finally add it to his ever growing collection. I'm so proud of him. I'm thankful that 3W worked so hard to try and sort this hiccup out. Job well done 3W . And after looking up the placing I told him to be super proud of that 3rd place because the kids who beat him all had been 14 and only beat him by about 2 minutes. That's awesome I think. He was holding his own, even sick, against 14 yr olds. Way to go G !!!!
