The Cougar Mile

Garrett's school, Cedar Creek, used this week to emphasize physical fitness and they culminated this week today with the annual running of the Cougar Mile. They divide the kids into ages and seperate boys and girls and they all run four laps around the track. Garrett expressed his desire to run the Cougar mile a few months back and so I have taken him running with me several times to try and prepare him and let me just say, I was not optimistic.....

But he was so excited....I fed him pasta last night and then bananas and yogurt this morning for breakfast as well as making sure he was drinking enough fluids. He woke up this morning all ready to go and dressed in his running shorts and Cedar Creek shirt. The six year old girls ran first and while watching them, and seeing how tired they were getting not far into the race, I began to worry about Garrett but of course, didn't let him see that.

After the girls finished, the boys started their warm up..... They did a five minute warm up and then the announcer asked for them to take their positions on the track.... Here they are jockeying for position...there was quite a bit of shoving and elbowing......

On your mark........................................Get set............................................................GO!!!!!!!

And they were off!!!! Some of them you could tell were experienced runners.....like this little boy here in the red shorts that you see......he finished the mile in 7 minutes......others took off WAY too fast and ran out of steam way too early. We had tried to remind Garrett over and over that he needed to set a pace that wasn't too fast and not too slow so that he wouldn't tire himself out....well.....he did really really well!!!! I was so proud of him........Here he is after his first full lap....he looked pretty tired and I was a little worried about him.....as he passed I gave him some encouragement......Ryan was on the opposite side of the track from me urging him on.....

Even though he looked soooo tired the little guy just kept on running......

Here he is after his second full lap......

His tongue was hanging out and he was sweating buckets....I was still a little worried....more and more kids were slowing and starting to walk some instead of keeping up a steady pace.....but about halfway through his third lap he settled in and actually seemed to do better............

Here he is after his third full lap....you can see his PE coach encouraging him and showing him that he only has one more lap to go.....I think this really helped him out alot!!!

So he began his fourth and final lap......this photo was taken after he was most of the way around....you can see from the pic that he has just come off the final curve and into the straightaway....that is Ryan acutally kind of jogging along beside him telling him he was almost there..... And that was about the time that he realized all his friends who had chosen not to run were sitting in the stands and they were cheering for him.....you can see in this photo that he is looking up into the stands and kind of smiling......this kid lives to impress others........ and after just a few more steps, he had made it!!!!!!

And then he was done......He got his National time medal and his cup of gatorade and sat down to rest and revel in the fact that he had completed his first Cougar Mile.....his final time was 10 minutes and 20 seconds give or take a few seconds which I thought was incredible!!!!!! For no more than he has been running or training he blew us away!!!!

This was such a huge confidence booster for him. He has one race under his belt, he knows what it is all about now, and I think he was VERY proud of himself. We are so proud of you, Garrett.....you persevered.....you pushed through......you proved to yourself that you can do it!!! Now that he has a taste of that satisfaction, I have a feeling we are gonna be doing alot more running.

One more thing before I let you go......someone else was caught up in the spirit of the race......he always watches Garrett and wants to do everything he does.....he begged me through the entire race to let him run....I kept telling him when Garrett was done.....I figured I could let him run a little bit before the next age group started.....well, let me tell you something......This little toot ran TWO WHOLE LAPS.......yes two that is half a mile without stopping.....those little legs were just a pumping and before long the entire crowd was watching him.....he had a pretty good little pace going too.

.....looks like I'm gonna have two runners!!!!! I am such a lucky Mom!!! I love you boys!!!!!