Halloween 5K

When my mom told me about a month ago that she'd been trying to incorporate a little bit of running into her exercise routine, I was more than thrilled. Like me, my mom is constantly battling her weight. When she loses, she's happy. When her eating is out of control, she's crabby and sad. Sound familiar?

I signed us up for a Halloween 5K that I've run before at a school for kids with special needs and developmental disorders. It's a great cause, and a fun run. Also, plenty of walkers so no pressure. I promised to stay with her, and we would run when we could. It was a wonderful experience to share with her, and although with her asthma she struggled at times to keep up (there might have been some swearing and dirty looks at my cheerleading attempts), I loved every minute of it.

I told her as we started that we were going to finish the race in under an hour...anything longer was not an option. She looked at me doubtfully, but to me it's a lot more fun to run when you have a goal. I kept telling her our time, and we'd estimate our pace and see if we needed to speed up or not. At one point I spotted a port-a-potty and needed to go, so I told her to keep walking and I'd catch up. I thought she'd walk slow and take the time to catch her breath, but that little bugger went into full-speed power walk mode and I had to sprint about a quarter mile to catch her. (That's when I realized I wasn't the only one driving our team to finish in time.)

We turned the corner for the final quarter mile, and although it was all uphill I kept pushing her to keep up the good work. She was huffing and puffing and working her ass off just to walk up the steep hill, but when we got to the final corral of cones she looked at me and said 'let's run to the end.' I was so damn proud of her! We held hands as we crossed the finish line together in 50 minutes. The woman who has inspired me all of my life to be better, aim higher and persevere no matter what the circumstances had yet again been the inspiration herself. Love you, Mama Bear.