Inaugural Color Run

Mile day at school is generally Fiona's second least favorite day of school. Topped only by track and field day (unless this year's field day put mile day in the lead). [Worth noting, mile day is Quinn's second favorite day of school. Topped only by track and field day ...] A few days after mile day, a flyer came home from school about a 1 mile color run in June at the school. I thought about asking Quinn to join me, but asked Fiona instead. She thought about it for a minute, set her chin, and said "mom, I'll do it." I was so so proud of her. The mile is very difficult for her and I love that she was willing to push outside her comfort zone. We discussed and drafted the other three Vs as well.

Then life happened and Mike ended up being out of town for the weekend. Because she was coming down for Q's field day, I put my marketing skills to work (and maybe a guilt card or two) to convince Auntie to take Mike's entry and do the mile with us. Auntie's least favorite things are mornings, people, and running. So a mile run at 8:30 am with other people sounded like just the perfect fit for her ... Because Auntie is the best, she agreed to join us, despite hating everything about the plan. She's a good Auntie!

We were up bright and early Saturday morning with our game faces on. We got to the school, got our white t-shirts (including a men's large for Auntie), and hit up the face painting line and playground. It was a little bit chilly, so we had layers on. We headed to the upper parking lot when we got our 5 minutes warning. Up there ... far away from our car ... we decided that we didn't want all the layers. So we stashed two sweatshirts and baseball cap in the bushes. About a tenth of a mile into the race, we stashed a third sweatshirt by a pine tree. Basically I got as much exercise after the race just retrieving all our stuff!

The color stations were so fun and spread out at good intervals. Every time Dec would start to run low on energy, he'd see the next station and find another wind. Dec ran almost the whole time. Quinn split the difference between Dec and me and Auntie and Bugs (I think she was pretty worn out from track and field the day before). Auntie and Fiona held hands the entire time and jogged most of the course. Our goal was to have fun and finish - we agreed that we weren't worried about our speed. And we accomplished both goals, while going at a decent clip for six short legs.

As D and I crossed the finish line, I heard big cheering for him. Original Ms. A was there to run the 5k right after the mile. So we got to hug her and have our own cheering section. The kids clearly still had energy because they headed to the playground for a bit longer. Then, I delivered on a promise and took everyone out for donuts. I figured if Auntie could run, I could buy treats! We tried a different donut shop in town and it was delicious. We will definitely go back there. While we ate, Fiona told me how much fun she had. And Auntie admitted it was not as awful as she had anticipated. I'm pretty sure that's code for "it was amazing and I can't wait to do it again."

After donuts, it was a five minute pit stop at home to drop off Auntie (she needed to go home and take a nap) and get Dec ready for soccer. It was his first soccer game of the year. We were all still colorful (Dec had pink hair and a pink line across his forehead), but off we went anyway. It was a 40 minute game of 3-on-3 soccer - and only 4 kids on D's team showed up. So the dude got plenty of playing time. About 10 minutes into the game, something clicked and Dec ended up scoring five goals. His team scored a total of five goals - so he definitely pulled his own weight. He was so tired, but proud!

We did all of these things before 11am. Then we hit up the playground near the soccer field. Needless to say, lunch was extremely quiet. As was bedtime.