Boy, was I wrong

Through all of my bitching and complaining about this running nonsense, today I managed to jog a full ½ mile.  Please, hold your applause.  I said HALF.  I brought my trusty sidekick with me for a walk/run (my son) and told him that if he wanted to get in shape for football, he should start joining me in my efforts to make my butt look less enormous.  So off we went for a 1-mile warm-up.  I explained to him that it was my goal to learn to run because I wanted to be healthier, and because it’s a task that I haven’t yet been able to accomplish.

I informed him that when we hit the ½ mile mark, we were going to jog at a slow pace back to our house.  I felt the need to prep him because he is 9, and the poor boy inherited his fathers short legs and I just knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with my stride.  However I comforted him and encouraged him to run at his own pace and that I wouldn’t lose site of him.  I’m such a good Mom (patting self on back).

We hit our halfway point and I said “Ok, are you ready?  We’re going to start running now.”  He says to me “Yep, I’m ready when you are.”  And off we went.  He kept looking up at me and wanting to chat as I’m focusing on my 2-2 breathing efforts.  [Let me just clarify something, I don’t multi-task when attempting to run.  This is dangerous and can cause over-exertion on my part when trying to think, run and talk at the same time.]  When he noticed I wasn’t paying attention, he bailed.  No, he didn’t stop running; he flat out took off – gone!  I thought “Oh how cute, he thinks he can out run me”.  I mustered up enough breath to yell out “Don’t go too fast, you’ll tucker out – pace yourself!”  Then, he turns around and starts running backwards and says, “C’mon Mom, you can do it!  I’ll back-pedal the whole way if you want!”  Are you serious?  Did my son just dis me?  Oh hell no.  I kicked it in to 2^nd gear (that’s as fast as I can go at the moment) and caught up to him, and he pulled away again.  I yelled, “It’s not a race!”  He says back “I’m not racing, I’m pacing myself”.  Whatever!  The little shit is trying to out-run me.  So I focus even harder on my breathing, spit flying everywhere, heavy panting, and feet flopping on the ground.  It was at this moment that I realized, I wasn’t running to push myself, I was running to prove that my 9-year old son couldn’t beat me! 

He won.  But I ran my first ½ mile without stopping and he later told me “I now know how you feel after all these months.  Apparently this is hard for you.”  His words of encouragement have now made me even more determined to meet my goal.