A 5K and a Homecoming Dance

It is a "warmish" day here in the upper Midwest. At least that is what the article said about the Chicago Marathon that was run today. I agree, it is warmish, in fact, it is Indian Summer here. What is Indian Summer? It is beautiful warm temperatures after the first frost of the fall. We had a few days of frost early last week so I guess this qualifies. Anyways, just beautiful outside, just not for marathon racing. Good thing I have 1 more week until Grand Rapids.

My taper is going well. I got in around 22 miles last week and put in 8 yesterday. But I did it in 3 short runs as I took my oldest girl to a 5K race. She just finished her first season of Cross Country at her school (yes, they allow 3rd graders to run CC there) and wanted to run a 5K to see how she could do. Based on her races, usually 1 1/2 miles long, I though she may be able to break 30 minutes, that is if she ran smart. In July, she did a 5K and ran 37 minutes so this would be a large task to complete.

There were not too many runners at this race as there was a very large race in Milwaukee that attracts most of the local runners so that left about 30 runners and maybe 100 walkers for this race. Very small! But good for an 8 year old. I had borrowed my friend Mike's Garmin since my is toast so I could track our pace knowing we needed to run about a 9:40 pace to break 30 minutes. We got on 9:20 pace right away and kept it simple. The race was 3 loops around the school that was putting on the race. Mile 1 was 9:22 and she was feeling OK. We took a 30 second walk break at about 1 1/2 miles and then kept going. She ended up running the second half of the race faster than the first half. The race ended up being 3.23 miles long and she ran a time of 29:22 which is the pace of 28:13 for a 5K. She did awesome! She took 15th overall and also won her age group getting a medal. She was very happy with the run and said afterwards she had a lot of fun. Funny thing is that I won my age group as well getting a medal and I ran with her the entire time for 16th place. OK, OK, I was the only one in my age group, but I won it anyways.

I live about 1/4 mile from the local High School in my city and yesterday was the homecoming dance. I took the girls to the school to a small public viewing area so they could see some the the girls as they like looking at all the "pretty dresses" as they call it. Maybe I am an old fart or perhaps it is just that I am the parent of 3 little girls, but if my girls ever wore some of the dresses we saw, they would be grounded for a week. What parent lets their kids out in some of this stuff??? We also saw 2 girls being escorted into the office while some police came in to give them Breathalyzers. Looks like they failed. Now, if my girls did that, I don't know how long they would be grounded for. Guess I am now officially a fuddy duddy.