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I have two daughters. Emily is eleven and Kelsey is eight (the little one was
seven then.) They, and their friend Erin, who is also eleven had become couch
potatoes over the winter. In those rare times when I could even get them to go out
to play in the winter, I would look outside and see them LYING DOWN in the forts
that they made. They wouldn’t even move out in the snow!
Emily was incredibly stiff. It was sad to see—she was just eleven, and couldn’t
make it down the stairs in the morning a step at a time. She had to step down one
step, then step on the same step with the other foot, heading down the stairs
like an old lady! It was also sad that her 35-year-old mother could beat her
running or doing anything physically. So, I made the unilateral decision that we
all would get running together. I’d love to tell you that the girls were willing
participants at first, but that absolutely was not the case. Isn’t there a
principle of physics that says that an object in motion stays in motion, and an
object at rest tends to stay at rest? Well, they were definitely objects at
rest.
So, anyway, I signed up for our first 5K race.
If you didn’t know our kids before, it might be hard to understand the difference
that being active made for them. Emily, especially, began to move with grace and
ease, instead of being stiff. Her personality changed. No longer did she complain
when I asked her to do something that required that she move. She began running
around in the house, dancing to music, stuff like that. One day she came home and
said that she had come in third in sprints in her gym class. I asked her where
she might have been without the running, and she said “Last!”
We trained for about six weeks for our first race. Erin won first place, Emily was second, and Kelsey was third. All that training was
worth it when the girls got their medals. My little one even thanked me for having them
run. She said that the race was easier than she had thought it would be.
We’ve just recently finished our second 5K. It wasn’t quite as fun as our
first race—about 15 degrees hotter, which was wicked, but we did it. Kelsey ran
a wonderful sprint for first place, and Emily was second. Erin didn’t run this
one. I know that I will probably not be a fast runner any time soon. But, I
probably can increase my mileage goal. So, I decided to sign up for a half
marathon. Me! Can you believe it?
Colleen, Emily and Kelsey
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