The Runners

William and Ryrie are at a very fun age. They are willing to try a lot of things, and sometimes they are excited on their own and sometimes they are encouraged to become excited! This year we signed them up for the "Marathon Club" at school. Basically, you run two days a week with the other kids in the club during the lunch hour, and then you are supposed to run more miles on your own at home. The boys got to where they were running 2 miles a day sometimes, and on the weekends we would do more running and walking. They both earned more than the required 26 miles! At the end, there was a final run in Cardston with all the participating schools where they did 1 mile together. The boys really liked doing this, and James and I felt like they really got into great shape. We decided to enter with them in the July 1st 5k run yesterday. They were a little grumpy about being woken up (after staying up till midnight watching fireworks the night before!) but that soon cleared and we had some fun doing warm ups and a family cheer (Goooo Spencers!!) and that sort of stuff. :-) James suggested we have a running formation so Ryrie and I ran in front and William and James ran behind us. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed talking with Ry and encouraging him on the run. We looked for people to pass and talked about running form and he had one moment where he got discouraged and I was grateful that I was there to talk him through it. He was excited to start sprinting at the end and we compared it to a crescendo--start a little faster, then speed it up gradually until you're running FORTISSIMO at the end! :-) He did really great--31:24 and Will did awesome too--32:26. James and I were thrilled that they tried this hard thing and were so successful at it too. I told Ry he has done something that I didn't do until much later in my life. He thought that was pretty neat.