Declaration Dash

We are AT THE BEACH! We left the June-uary temps of Canada the day after Reagan finished with preschool to head back to our favorite place in the world... the family beach house at Sunset Harbor in North Carolina where the sun seems to be always shining!  We arrived early in the morning on June 29th after flying through the night.  Thankfully both children slept on the plane... Myers slept better on the plane than he does at home.  Maybe we just need to be international jet-setters all the time!

After a few days of adjusting to the jet lag, time change, heat and humidity, it was time to head to Wilmington, NC for the Declaration Dash race.  Reagan ran in this same 2K race last year with her Daddy and her Pops.  This year, she decided that she wanted me to run the 2K with her so her Daddy could run the 10K race by himself.

Ryan trained for his race... I, on the other hand, decided to just suck it up and run the day of the race with no training at all.  Reagan probably wishes that I had put forth a little more effort because I'm pretty sure that I slowed her down tremendously while we were running.  I even asked her to slow down a couple of times early on.  She only stopped to walk one time... at the water station right at the midway point.

Once we had made the turn to return to the Start/Finish line, I told Reagan to feel free to run ahead and to leave me if she thought that I was going too slow.  She stayed with me for a short while longer, but once she realized that the Finish line was in sight, she took off sprinting on her own and left me in her dust!

 

The crowd went wild cheering once they saw her coming.  She, of course, was eating it up and running faster and faster!

After the race, the only thing left to do was to cool off with a fresh fruit smoothie and a slice of watermelon.  Oh, and of course she had to tease mommy for getting beat by a 5 year old!  I was just relieved to have finished the race and to still be able to stand on my own after it was over since it had been more than 18 months since I had done ANY form of running!

She finished the 2K with at a time of 12:58, and she placed second in her age group.  She was the youngest runner in the entire race, thus also the youngest runner in her age group of over a dozen 5-8 year olds.  All of the children that participated received a medal and an opportunity to stand on the podium!

Ryan finished the 10K with a time of 42:49!  That's a pace of 6:54 per mile!  Way to go, honey!  I think he's got the running bug now and I'm going to need to find a few races for him to run in once we get back home!  And who knows, maybe I'll get back into the running groove myself...