Most inspirational run ever.

We are super incredibly busy this coming weekend, so instead of doing my long run on Saturday morning as usual, I needed to get my run in this morning. Weekday runs are hard for me in the summer because I have my kids at home. My youngest's last day of school was today (sniffsniff!) but my oldest is out of school already and would have to come along with me. When I'm faced with this proposition, I usually head to the gym where he can hang out and play video games in the Kids Club while I run. A long run on the treadmill, however, did NOT appeal to me. We do have a strange little dirt track not far from our house...it's maintained by the city and is technically a flood control facility with a track at the top. It's totally fenced in and randomly gets locked down so no one can use it. No one at the city rec office can explain to me what the schedule is. It's pretty much unlocked "whenever someone remembers and stays unlocked until someone remembers to lock it again." Oh and if there's rain in the forecast, it's usually locked since it is a flood control facility. Lucky for me, it was open today, so I dragged my oldest son over to do some laps for his 100 Mile Club challenge while I ran.

As expected, he half walked/half jogged about two laps and then wanted to park himself on a bench with his video games. I agreed to let him, as long as he did at least two more laps before we left AND helped me count my laps. I get partially delirious after running very far on a track...nine laps jumps to twelve and then back down to eight, no eleven, and suddenly I'm freaking out because I've lost count. I armed my precious kiddo with a pen and paper and asked him to please tear his eyes away from his games long enough to just count.

Around eighteen laps in, he could see that I was getting a little tired. Not only that, I'd realized that the track was coming out at just slightly under a quarter mile, and I'd need to add at least an extra lap at the end of my run to even out the discrepancy. I asked him with less than enthusiasm to add one more lap to my goal, and he turned to me and said, "Mom, instead of telling you how many laps you've done, why don't I tell you how many you've got left? It's a much more positive way to look at it." I gaped open mouthed at my 9-year old. When did he become such an optimist??? Okay, he's totally brilliant, I already knew that, but the fact that he saw I was getting tired and negative and spun things around like that was pretty cool. I told him so, and he grinned and set out to do another lap with me.

Somewhere around twenty-something laps in, I was getting hot and feeling beat. The sun was starting to come out from behind the "June gloom," and the endless, boring loop was starting to get to me. As I came around the turn to the straightaway where he was sitting, my wonderful child sprang up and started cheering. "You can do it, Mom! Anything you think you can do, you can! Only 7 laps left!" I wanted to kiss him for his encouragement, so I did. We high-fived and I kept going. After that lap, every lap was a new inspiration, "You are on fire, Mom!! Don't stop!" he yelled after me. Four laps to go, he put down the beloved video game that I thought was permanently attached to his body and started running with me. I didn't think he could run four whole laps beside me, but not only did he keep up, he kept encouraging me the whole time. "Hey, I'm the one that's supposed to be telling YOU how great YOU are doing, you know?" I said to him. "You are pretty amazing," I told him. He grinned again and looked at me and said, "No, Mom, YOU are amazing." We finished the last lap together and I gave him a huge hug. I've never been more proud or inspired. The kid I had to drag to the track was the one pushing me to finish strong, not even realizing his own awesome accomplishment. He'd just run a whole mile with me, farther than I've ever seen him run in his whole life. We must be doing something right to have such an incredible kid. Sure, he can be as selfish and self-centered as the next nine year old sometimes, but in the clutch, he can look beyond himself to help someone else out, and turn negativity into encouragement and positive thinking. Yeah, I'm biased, but I think he's going to be a runner.