S was in the girls' club Girls on the Run this year. She's been meeting after school with her club, where they talk about things important to girls as they grow into young women. Body image, self esteem, those sorts of things. They also have been training to run a 5k.
She's really been enjoying it, and it was heartily endorsed by my sister, who joined the club when she was in elementary school and enjoyed it thoroughly.
S gets a lot of 'running' influence from her family members. One of the most important things to me physically since my cancer treatments has been getting back into running. Her paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather are both marathoners, and my sister and hubby's brother and sister are all into it too. Even my mom and hubby's dad run, but not as far as their crazy spouses! (Yet. Not saying it won't happen.)
Tonight the season culminated with their 5k. This is entirely a fun event, no clocks, people encouraged to line the course the whole way and cheer the whole time. I ran with S and so did my sister. That was fun. The plan was for S to kind of pace with me, as we guessed (based on how long it took her to do some training runs) that between running and walking, she was finishing runs about as fast as I could do them at a jog. So she expressed the desire to not walk at all, and we hoped that by sticking with me she could accomplish her goal.
Well, it worked! She pushed me faster than I would have normally run it, and I helped her stay at a slower jog at the times when her run was getting too fast. She jogged the entire 5k. I hope she's very proud of herself, as we are very proud of her!
And, of course, being curious and competitive as I am, I did (kind of) keep track of our speed. I'm pretty sure we ran it in right around a half hour. Not sure how accurate the course was, or how good my guesses were as I didn't check my watch until after the start and a few minutes after the finish. But still a very good time. Very impressive for an 8 year old girl, for sure!
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