Fartlek - fun to say, fun to do.

I have been trying to motivate my almost 9-year old son to run with me for at least a year. He gets tired, his feet hurt, he doesn't feel like it, he has a million excuses. This summer, we embarked (along with my almost 6-year old son) on a challenge through 100 Mile Club to run 26.2 miles. This isn't consecutive all at once miles...no, I'm not forcing my children run a marathon. It's 26.2 miles over the course of the whole summer. We do a little here, a little there and it all adds up. Mostly we've been walking, but this morning it was just my oldest and I at home and I decided to try and get him out the door with me for a run.

I told him we'd do one mile, and we'd walk some, run some. He reluctantly agreed and pulled on his shoes, and we headed out. As we began, I started to explain to him what a fartlek was. I knew he'd think the word was hysterical (and I was totally right, he immediately began saying it over and over as loudly as possible. My apologies to any neighbors still asleep!) I also thought he might like the "game" aspect of choosing a point and racing to the next. I told him we'd walk in-between, and we could take turns choosing our start and end points. To my surprise and delight, he was completely onboard. Not only was he all for it, he was excited! We had a BLAST together racing through the neighborhood. "Run to the next trashcan starting...NOW!" he'd shriek. "Hey, you got a head start, not fair!" I'd yell as we tried to outrun each other.

It totally MADE my day to run with him and see him having so much fun. I'm crossing my fingers that we can make fartlek runs a regular thing. And that he'll always find the fun in them.