Adalyn's First Race!

Two weekends ago Adalyn ran in her first race and of course I had to get lots of pictures. I belong to a local chapter of a running club called Moms Run This Town. We use a group facebook page and have gotten to know each other through the page, meeting up before/after local races and getting together with girls in our own neighborhoods for training runs. We have all different ages of women in our group and we all have different paces. I've gotten to become friends with some of the girls in the group and I've had fun at the different meet-ups.

The running group does two virtual races a year. A virtual race is when you pay for a bib and medal but do the running on your own time. The club has each of the local chapters do the virtual race together. This race our leader decided we should do a trail hike instead of a road race. (Not my ideal but it ended up being a pretty day and a good way to meet more girls in the club.)

When they released what our race medal would look like they also released a medal for a kids race. Our leader asked if we had interest in planning a kids race and we all decided that would be fun. The kids medals matched ours but were a bit smaller so the kids thought they were BIG stuff after the race!

We rented out a shelter at a local park and did a sign up list for a potluck picnic. Our leader made up "swag bags" for the kids that included stickers, tatoos, bracelets and other fun stuff. Since we all have different ages of kids we did different heats of races. The first one was the heat Adalyn was in and they had a short run out and back on the running path. Adalyn did such a good job and was so serious about it all.  Earlier that day she couldn't nap and she told me that she didn't want to run in the race because she hadn't had enough practice. She is her daddy's daughter!

Even though Cayden wasn't registered to run the race, we let him wear a race number and he thought he was cool. Of course right when the running started, it started to rain. So frustrating when you've planned something like this. But the kids didn't seem phased and ran anyway.

Ready to go in her cute little Nike running skirt.

 Lining up! 

 And they're off...

 Cayden lasted a couple steps and didn't feel like powering through the rain and wanted to be carried.

 Headed back to the finish line!

 This is one of my favorite pictures of her. The look of shear joy on her face is priceless!

 Can you tell she wanted to be watching the next round of runners instead of smiling for a picture? ha!

We are so proud of her! I sure hope this is the first of many race medals that will hang around her neck. Running is such a healthy sport so I really hope she has the love for it that her daddy and I have. She has already talked about the next time she will get to run in a race so I think she's ready to do it again!