Category — Beast Jr

For the first time ever my entire family joined me to do the Turkey Trot in Prospect Park. I usually have a nice sized crew doing this with me and this year’s was no exception. My family only made it larger.  We slept a little late and had to scramble to get ready, but we made it to the race site after meeting my crew on the corner of my block with plenty of time to spare.

My daughter ran with my wife and my son, who I affectionately call Beast Jr, ran with me.  Jr was intent on beating some of our friends and wanted to run a good race. We lined up about midway in the pack and started off at an easy pace. I kept checking to see if the pace was too fast by asking Jr if he was able to talk.  He kept being able to answer me in complete sentences, so I wasn’t worried that we were going too fast too early.  We were running fluidly through the first mile and he had a smile on his face the entire time.  We finished the first mile in 10:24.

Running through mile two we were still doing very well.  I made sure that we didn’t start increasing the pace too much and reiterated to let all of the kids that he saw go ahead and pass us.  I explained how they were most likely going out too fast and that we would undoubtedly pass them later on.  I kept coaching him to run his own race and not to key on the other runners around him.  I also explained about cutting the tangents and that he should concentrate on running as short a course as possible.  We made it through mile two in 10:05.

Mile 3 was another negative split in 9:51.  During all this time we were running, we were keeping two members of our group in sight of us.  We weren’t chasing them per se, but did want to try to keep them in sight to see if we could catch them at the end.  We pushed it a bit during this mile and Jr was clearly working hard.  I stopped making him try to complete sentences, but just kept asking him if he was ok, to which he was responding yes.  The smile on his face began to change to a look of concentration and commitment to nail this race.

The fourth mile was done in 9:32.  We were working very hard.  Jr started to make some grunting noises and was clearly getting uncomfortable.  By now he had shed down most of his clothes to just a wife beater t-shirt and a pair of shorts.  I was carrying his arm warmers and long sleeve running shirt.   Runners all around were offering him encouragement and telling him how good he was doing and how impressed they were with his effort.  He would smile through the pain at this and kept moving strong.  Clearly a runner was being born.

The last mile made the entire race.  I explained to him that at some point during the last mile he didn’t need to hold back any longer; there was nothing left ahead for which to save his effort.  He was clearly moaning at this point and suffering.  This was undoubtedly the first time he caused himself to voluntarily suffer for any length of time and I could tell he was trying to decide for himself whether or not this was for him or not.  Our pace during the last mile slowly crept up.  At one point during the last mile I could tell we were beginning a finishing kick a little too early.  We backed it off for a tiny bit, until we go to around a third of a mile remaining.  Jr began to ask where the finish line was.   Soon enough, I was able to point it out right around a turn.  I told him “There is the finish line, the faster you get to it, the sooner your suffering will be over”.  He took off like a bullet out of a gun and I struggled to keep up with him.  We passed dozens of runners.  People cheered and encouraged him on.

He crossed the finish line in 49:12, with an 8:17 split for the last mile.  My boy just started seriously running recently and is already approaching 8 minute miles.  I can’t tell you how long it took me to get to this point.  I am just so damn proud of him.  As we crossed the line he stated how he feels like he has to throw up.  I explained that this is normal after a hard effort and that we need to keep moving and that he should go off to the side if he needed to hurl.  That didn’t come to pass though and we kept walking down the finishing chute and soon enough recovered.  He made comments about how that last bit sucked and that he felt like he was going to die, but he didn’t make any comments about never wanting to do that again.  I think deep down he was very proud of himself and looking forward to the next challenge.

Having my own son run like this and show an interest in it is causing me to rediscover my running enthusiasm.  I can’t wait to get back out there with him again, but I know I can’t push him like I would push myself.  First off, that would be foolish.  He needs time to recover.  Secondly, I must make sure this remains a fun challenge for him.  I want him to come to me to go for a run, not for it to always be the other way around.  I’ll just have to temper myself and hope that he continues to develop as a runner.