The Big Race 2011

I know I went into this last year, but James, like many young boys, loves to run. Like many young boys, James loves to race, and like many young boys (ok, all people all ages) James loves to win. Because of this love of running/racing/winning, I signed James up for his first race a year ago. He had a great time, and, I kid you not, has been talking about his race since then. As in a year ago. Every so often he would ask, "mommy, is my race coming up?" We would explain to him, "after Halloween, after Christmas, after winter is your race." Then it would be "after new years, after valentine's day, after June's birthday is your race". Then it was, "your race is in two weeks" then "five days", "four days", "tomorrow" and finally, "James, your race is after quiet time/nap time".

I guess you could say he was excited.

Last night he started asking, "mom, do you think I can win?" and "mom, do you think I will win?" Turns out, those are two totally different questions. Again, we just tried to emphasize that winning would be nice, but as long as he did his best and had fun, that was all that really mattered. This race was affiliated with the Reedy River Run in Greenville and was a 400m fun run for kids 3-6. It was suppose to start about 5:45, but it actually started about 5:40. We got there about 5:30. There was a big rush to check in and get shirts/numbers on. Before I post this first picture, let me say again that this race was for kids 3-6. Andy is 2.5, but we figured he would not want to be left out this year. We were so right. Ms. Juliet let us borrow John's race shirt from last year and I pinned on James's old bib number and he was happy:


The blue shirts were this years shirts and they were tech shirts, super cool, unfortuately they only had size XL for the adult races, but whatever. When the boys put on their shirts and their numbers they were pumped. This was my favorite part of the evening:


Then we made our way to the starting line. Do some of these kids look older than 6 to you? That is James with his hands on his hips moving his way to the front:


Looks like he made it to the front:


James was ready to go:


And again unlike last year, the kids were just pumped, not nervous at all. The organizer was great. He counted down from 10 to 1 and said go, and they went!

The plan was to have Ms. Juliet at the finish, have me float between James and John, and Mark stayed with Andy. This worked out pretty well. Here is John making the first turn:


Sorry it is blurry, you will just have to trust that is John. At this point, John said, "I'm tired, I want to walk." True to Coach Kerri fashion I said, "John, we will walk until that second balloon, but then we are going to run!" and we did.

At this point I was to apologize for being one of those parents who takes pictures like this during an event. I know it is annoying, and I know I am getting in peoples way, but it is just so cute I have to take a record of it!

This is James leaving us in his dust. I am pretty sure he ran the whole way:


John and I finished about 2:50, so James probably finished 2:20-2:30. James didn't win, but he says he did and we will go with that. Here is James with his medal:


Right after this picture was taken, James said, "Mom, I want to run another race!" Um, ok.

As for Andy, I don't think we have any pictures while he was running, but Mark said he did great. He ran the whole time, may have come in last, as James and John said "we won, but Andy did NOT win!", but his time was about 4 min. Look at this guy with his stolen medal:


We did bring a back up medal, but well, they just gave him one, so we will go with it. Here are all three of our champions:


And finally our celebratory dinner also with Ms. Mattie, who I believe was chip timed:


This dinner was not necessarily a raging success, nor was it vegan, but it was still a good time.

See you next year!