Foot Race

It is a sad, sad day when you realize your six year old can run faster than you can. This week we were out playing with our neighbor friends. My friend Sarah was "timing" Ann Marie to see how fast she could run to the second light post and back. After posting a time of 47.6 and then 47.2 she got serious and went into the house to replace her flip flops with tennis shoes.

With tennis shoes on she posted a time of 46.2. She was excited to have shaved a whole second off her time. All the time she was running I thought, "Geez she could go faster. That doesn't look like she is running full out." I kept yelling "GO ANNIE! Run like there is a monster behind you!"

It was fun. In fact I thought it looked like so much fun that I thought I would race her. What was I thinking? I don't know.

Back in the day (like in college), I used to run. I never have sprinted but I would average 10 minute miles with ease. And I trained to get down to 1.5 miles in 12 minutes for PE. I wanted an A and that was how you got it.

But it has been years since I ran regularly -- lots of years. In fact now that I am thinking about it, I don't think I have run regularly since I had Sabrina.

Anyway, none of this was in my head as I lined up to race my little girl. I have longer legs. She is little. Surely I can out run her right? Boy was I wrong.

Off we raced and she kept looking around at me to see where I was. She would slow up to not be too far ahead of me. I ran as fast as I could in my Crocs with no sports bra and ready to be milked. We got to the light post and headed back. 15 feet from the finish line I lost a shoe. A fraction of a second later Annie finished as I went back for my shoe.

Her time -- 48 seconds. She was slowing up for me.

It is a sad, sad day.

I want a rematch. This time I am going to train and wear a sports bra and make sure I have nursed right before I go out. And this time I am wearing MY tennis shoes. (Well considering that my tennis shoes are also a decade or more old, maybe I should get a new pair of those before I try a rematch.)

In all seriousness, I wanted to write this post because it was so fun to run with Ann Marie and race her. She was so happy and proud of herself to "beat her mom" at something. It is one of those "motherhood memory snapshots" in my head that I am savoring now and want to remember always. I only wish I had captured the race in a real photograph. In the rematch I will make sure to video and photograph it.