OUTDOOR SUNDAY EVENINGS 5K RACE REPORT

Me, Brandon's Dad, and Brandon before the race.

Yesterday evening was the Outdoor Sunday Evenings 5K put on by the church by my house. The point of doing this race was to have my little brother Brandon from Big Brothers, Big Sisters do the race. Not only did he do it, he did awesome! I was (still am) very proud of him! His dad also did well for his first 5k but far below his expectations.

I picked Brandon up around 1pm Sunday, making sure he was in appropriate running attire. I could tell he was kind of nervous all afternoon with this giant three mile run looming ahead of him. To his credit, he took the race in stride and didn't complain too much. I got him to agree to a 5k in one of his better moods a few months ago, but I could tell it wasn't something he was necessarily looking forward to. The goal was to make it as fun as possible. Even walking a 5k is an accomplishment, so I let him know beforehand we were going to walk and that was okay. We'd just do our best!

About a quarter mile into the race... lookin' good!

We got to the race about an hour early and checked in. Turns out there were 180 runners, really the perfect size. Not too small, not too big. After that we just kind of hung around, checked out the final 500 yards or so of the race, and stretched. His dad was prepared to win the race and was trying to play it cool but you could tell he was nervous. Brandon admitted to being pretty nervous too. And despite not really running this race hard, I was nervous too! I usually get nervous before a race, but I wasn't really racing this one. I think I was just nervous because I wanted Brandon to do well and not have a negative experience.

Eventually we queued up and the "gun" went off. Brandon's dad had lined up in the front and shot to the lead. He led the race for the first 3/4ths of a mile or so before pulling a muscle and having to let up. Honestly, it was kind of what I expected. He had run the Thursday before with me and we did 10k at a 9/min pace. He did really well for not ever running for sustained periods of time. However, that was nothing compared to the 5:30/mi pace he tried running at the race and predictably he couldn't maintain. He was really down on himself... not sure if running is his sport just based on the fact he is one of those people that has to win. He ran/walked it in for a 26:25. Still, not bad!

At the beginning I warned Brandon to pace himself and he did a pretty good job of that. He still darted out a little fast and I had to reel him in a little bit. As planned, I paced us at about 9:00/mile. Brandon wanted to run 8:00/mile but I knew 9:00 was more realistic. Later on in the race I was probably doing 10:00/mile, just to keep him running as much as possible.

Anyways, he did really well for a while and we passed Libbie taking pictures about a quarter mile in without walking (thanks Lib!). Brandon needed his first walk break at about the half mile mark and that was more than okay with me. After about twenty seconds we picked it back up.

Almost to the finish!

The rest of the race was challenging Brandon to run as much as he could. We never ran another half mile without taking a break. We might have barely made it a quarter mile. I encouraged him to "attack" all the downhill portions and we did that pretty well. I had to restrain him from running up one hill... apparently at that moment he was feely spunky and started to bomb up it but I had to tell him to walk. That would have tuckered him out for a while!

We stopped at the aid station halfway through the course and had water. At one point Brandon thought we were almost in last place because he couldn't see many people behind us, and I had to explain how the race spreads out after a while and there were plenty of people behind us. It was funny how tired he was (he was really sweaty and panting) but then he'd have bursts of energy to jump and try and touch tree leaves and stuff. Kids.

Anyways, the kid was a champ. He had to take a lot of walk breaks but he always kept running again. I'd set little challenges ("let's start running at the stop sign and not stop until that big tree up there") and he met all of them. Eventually we found our way through the neighborhoods and back close to the church. The lure of the finish line was motivating for him and that last half mile or so had the least amount of walking since the first half mile.

Brandon burning me at the finish line.

Eventually we got near the finish line and he took off like a bat out of hell. He SPRINTED that thing in. I was behind him but he finished four seconds in front of me. Really impressed with him! He got a 36:49, and I was officially clocked at 36:53. We were 113th and 114th of out 180 respectively.

After catching our breath we got in line for food and got our free cheeseburger and a bag of chips. The cheeseburger was burnt to hell, but oh well, it was fine. We each ended up getting seconds too. A great deal for $10. Dad was still pretty perturbed at his performance and kept lamenting about the muscle he pulled. He vowed to heal up, practice, and do another race at some point.

The best part of the night? When Brandon was asked if he had fun. "Yes." Would he do it again? "Yes."

Mission accomplished.