Friday, August 17, 2007

Thursday Night 5K

Yesterday evening my brother and his girlfriend joined the kids and me for the Vasque Artesani Park 5K Race Series. This was a very well organized low key event held on the Charles River in Brighton, Ma. Starting time was 6:45PM so there was an initial race to the race. While fighting the Boston traffic and hitting every red light we pulled into the park at 6:40PM, everyone jumped out of the minivan, kids hopped in the jogger and the four of us dashed to the start. There was a small crowd of about 50 runners perfectly sized to my liking; I was the only one with two little motor mouths and a jogging stroller. My guy’s were chattering the whole run, they’re my little coaches, telling me things like ”there are more runners up there daddy hurry”, “go daddy go”, “faster daddy faster” and of course “are we there yet daddy” I think at one point I got called a “slow poke”. The course runs along the paved bike paths of the Charles Riverway and as we passed a playground en route my daughter said “daddy can we stop the race and go to the playground” makes perfect sense to a 3yold right. After a few minutes I decided to make a break and push pass the crowd of runners, it takes a little finesse with a double jogger but most folks let me squeak by. Before I know I’m tailing the two leading women, trying to keep up with them and talking to my kids at the same time was a challenge in-itself, after we crossed the last bridge I made a move to pass the leading women and as I passed my daughter ask “daddy are you ok, why are you breathing so loud, you should take a rest” kids they speak the truth and to the point. Well I managed to pass her but couldn’t hold on to the finish and she passed me at the end, we crossed in 20 minutes and change a sixth place finish overall and I got a cool beer mug for placing second in my age group. My brother called me an animal when he reached the finish in 24 minutes. We all had a grand time at the Artesani Park 5K, fabulous race, well organized, great course with an accompanying sunset, fun competition with the ladies, and the kid’s quotes were priceless. They were happy to finally make that stop at the playground, we spent some time here and all went back to the finish for the awards and raffle were Craig won a nice fuel belt. We finish off the evening with some tall glasses of milk for the kids, tasty Mojitos for us, Virgin Mojito for Cathy and pizza…it was a perfect ending to a wonderful Thursday night!

Artesani Park 5K #4 Results
Post Race:

Craig and my wife Cathy both asked me if I could have won the race if I wasn’t pushing the kids, maybe and I’m sure there’s probably some kind of physics formula dealing with speed and velocity to get a ball park estimate of my time minus the jogging stroller but when I look back sharing the moment with Niamh and Oliver was more rewarding than winning, they had me laughing the whole time, I don’t think I could run a 5K without them.

Now go make yourself a Mojito -