Parents are sick and tired of selling wrapping paper, coffee beans, steaks and cookie dough for school field trips and programs. So, last year Antelope Hills Elementary decided to go old school. Raising money for the entire year's worth of programs and field trips by holding a jog-a-thon. This is the only fundraiser of the year and it promotes good healthy habits without turning our children into sale's people.
This year the girls are inspired by my running work and have been challenging me. Coming home every week telling me that they could run a 8 minute or 9 minute mile in practice. Asking me what my time is. So, I agreed to run with them this year. Now, when I made this agreement I didn't actually think about the fact that I would be running for 20 minutes per child. I was thinking today was going to be my "off" day from the gym. HAHAHAHA!
I volunteered to work the event for the whole 4 hours, so in between running I was water bottle/recycling mom out on the field. I have decided that next year I'm going to encourage the PTA to have a better water set up because full sized water bottles for 975 students was hard to manage. I was forcing them to drink it rather than wasting it and a lot of kids preferred to dump it on their heads instead.
Anyway, the Ubaydi girls were excited to have mom run with them. I am so impressed with each of them. They ALL ran for the entire run, did not stop and in some cases beat me.
Sophia was first. She's very much a runner like me. She paces herself and she ran a comfortable run the entire time, she stayed steady at an even pace of approximately a 10 minute mile or slightly less. She said she could have run a little faster at times but she was comfortable where she was and we were happy little running partners. Not too shabby for a 7 year old.
Ava was up next. What a sprinter that girl is. She was jazzed up from the beginning, she was ready to open up all cylinders and run like the wind. I have NEVER seen Ava run like this. I was completely shocked. She sprinted out of the starting gate and was literally a half lap ahead of me for the entire time. She'd slow down a little and I'd close the gap on us and as soon as she saw me coming she sprinted ahead again. I kept waiting for her to loose endurance and she ran the entire 20 minutes as an interval. I was laughing that my 5 year old gave me a run for my money.
Isabella was next on deck. I was nervous. This was my 3rd run and the sun was getting hot. I knew Isabella could run at least an 8:20 mile. She blew me away at the starting line. She was a steady 3/4th of a lap ahead for quite some time. But, about half way through the race I caught her as she started to slow her pace. We ran a nice 9-10 minute pace after that and she didn't stop. The final 2 minutes she was dragging, but she held my hand and I pulled her along. I encouraged her and her friends that they've come this far and 2 minutes is nothing, let's go, keep running we can do this.
What a great job these girls did. I ended up running for 60 minutes total and I'm guessing I averaged between 5-6 miles. Their classmates were pumped that mom's were out there running and I was impressed with the determination of some of the kids too.
What a great run!
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