Holy COW! They ran HOW far?!?

Don't you just love to accomplish a goal?  Especially a challenging one that you set for yourself far in advance and you have to take specific, purposeful, incremental steps to achieve it?  What's even better than that, as a parent, is to see your children achieve a goal in that way.  And yesterday, I was very proud to see Chase and Avery accomplish a goal they had set for themselves early in the summer and for which they have worked almost daily since then to prepare.  They ran their VERY FIRST 10K race!  That means that they ran 6.2 miles all at once.  Pretty impressive, huh?

Their goal was to run with me in the Holy COW 10k race that I do every year in mid-August.  The longest that either of them had ever run before was half that distance in a 5k.  So, we set up a workout and running schedule for them that they followed for about 9 weeks, developing their endurance with longer and longer runs until they were finally able to run a 10k by the time race day rolled around.  And they DID IT!!!  How fun is that?  Here are a whole bunch of pictures from the Holy COW showing their fantastic accomplishment:

This was our pre-race selfie!  I've done this same run every year since we moved to Westminster, excepting the year Coco was born and the two years we were in Parker.  So, you might think it is pretty old hat for me!  But before this run, the boys were both so excited and nervous about it, that I found myself feeling more excited and nervous about it than usual!  Haha!  Having them join me made it a whole new experience.  So fun! Oh, and BTW, don't you love my new pink and polka dot headband that Nate recently bought for me?  I had to coordinate my entire running outfit to this color scheme just so I could wear it for the race.  Thanks and love you, honey!

Here is Avery, followed by me, as we approached our personal cheer squad on the trail, consisting of Courtney, Trey, and Daddy!  It's always extra fun to see those sweet faces along the way!

Courtney had picked a little wildflower for me to carry for the rest of the race.  Such a sweetheart!

This was also the location of our second water station, so we were excited to make a quick stop here for some hydration!

At this point of the race (the water station), Chase was not far behind us (can you see Avery and I in this picture up ahead on the trail?).  The great thing about Chase's run is that he was able to find a good pace for himself and he maintained it the whole way through.  It worked out really well for him, as you'll soon see!

Chase is also happy to see our little cheer squad on the trail rooting for him!

He's looking for a high five from Trey!

Here we are on our return trip.  Poor Avery had an excellent run through the first half of the race, but kind of hit a wall at about the halfway point.  He had been struggling with a cold over the previous days and was a bit low on energy.  Add to that the fact that he wore long pants to protect himself from bug bites (to which he is VERY prone) AND that the race hadn't started until 9am when the heat was coming on.  Those long, hot stretches of trail were hard on him, so we had to take our pace much slower on the way back.  So, you can see here that Chase had caught up to us and would soon pass us and leave us in his dust.  Good for Chase but unfortunate for Avery.  Regardless, Avery hung in there and endured the challenge and finished the race strong!  So, good for him, too!

Hard to see us, but there we are!  Isn't this trail so gorgeous?

Beautiful scenery!

Coming up to the water station on our return trip.  And excited to say hi to our little fans, too!

Getting our water...

And a few high fives!

Here is Chase coming across the finish line at a mad sprint!

And here you can see Avery and me coming up to the finish line, flying to a strong finish!  I love how I pace myself with him the whole way, and then he takes off at a crazy sprint at the end and leaves me huffing and puffing behind him...nice!  But I was especially glad that he finished so well after getting so worn down by his cold and the heat of the morning.  Great job, Avery!

Victory photo taken by Daddy after we had all crossed the finish line and made our way to some shade and the water bottles.  Sorry about the bunny ears, Avery.  I couldn't help myself!

Same picture, full length shot.

And then, the great surprise of the morning: we were looking for some post-race snacks and hardly paying attention when they were announcing awards...when suddenly we heard them announce Chase's name over the loud speaker!  You should have seen all of our faces as we registered the surprise and excitement of learning that Chase took the 3rd place medal for his age division (males under 18).  AWESOME!!!  His overall pace was about a 10-minute mile, which was pretty good, and obviously good enough to win him a medal.  How about that?  On the winners stand for his very first 10k.  Nice going, Chase!