Run, Forrest, Run!

Perhaps you remember this line from Forrest Gump: "Run, Forrest, Run!" And Forrest takes off down the road and finds out that he is a speed demon and he runs and runs and runs.

That scene was running through my mind this week when my kids and I all ran a 5K. Not that I discovered I was a speed demon, but I was thinking, "Run, Kris, Run!" when my body was saying, "Stop, Kris, Stop!"

I haven't run (or even exercised) since school started last August. To say that I have been too busy is an understatement. So when Katie decided she wanted to run the 5K and she needed someone to go with her, I offered to do so with some trepidation. But hey, I thought, I ran for a good part of last year, I can do this.

All I can say is that it's a good thing Katie and her friends wanted to walk as much of the race as they ran. I needed the breaks as much as they did.

But we all made it, and we discovered that Alissa is a long-distance runner. She ran the whole thing in 28 minutes! Josh cruised (basketball & soccer have kept him shape) at 21 minutes. Jenna said that she was just relaxing and came in at 33 minutes and Kellie, who came in at 38 minutes declares that she's really a sprinter. Katie came in at 45 minutes and me, well, I'll take my 47 minutes and blame it on the two third graders I was responsible for who refused to run any more the last half mile of the run.

They needed me to protect them, right?

Note on my photo: I have been watching a lot of triathlons on TV lately and lots of them raise their arms triumphantly when they cross the finish line...so I did.

*Thanks to my journalism student, Muzna, for taking these great pics.