Running With My Child/The Sharks Fitness Challenge

It was a 5k run that I signed up for at the last minute. I had originally just signed up my 11 year old for the kids fun run, but he begged and begged me to run the 5k with him (ok he didn't really have to beg that hard).  So sign up I did.

Seven tutus for seven runners

Since my cousins were also signed up, we came up with a crazy idea to make teal tutus in honor of the San Jose Sharks. So Friday before the race, on a blistering day when my A/C chose to break down, we made seven tutus.

That Sunday, June 30th was the middle of a very unusual heatwave that hit our fair Bay Area. (Yes, I will admit that we are spoiled crybabies who will complain if the temperature gauge flactuates beyond 75 degrees.) It was predicted to go up to 99 degrees that day, so I made a deal with my son to try and finish the 5k in forty minutes. Not too much to ask for, right? And we are off!
We were off to a running start, well at least for the first thirty seconds before my Bubba decided to slow down to warm up first. But the warm up walk kinda lasted almost the entire race. (To be fair, he did tell me he wasn't able to sleep all night because it was too hot.) I tried to encourage him to keep going and to try to at least jog. I found myself getting frustrated because it was a race after all. I literally had to stop take a breath and come to a realization that he has not trained for this. He is trying is best and I had to forget about my time and worry about him just getting to the finish.
I run for many reasons. One of them is so that I could inspire my children to try their best and to also to as healthy as they could be. In light of that, I need to keep in mind that signing them up for one race without really helping them train for is not a way to help me reach my goal.
Thank you for reading my first blog. I hope to share with you more of my journey and I hope that you could join me.

How do you encourage your children to excercise?
Have you run races with your children?