My Little Olympian

J has started his sports career. I remember asking Ken once about what sports he thought our children should play. Soccer......was the one sport he didn't want them to play- if I remember correctly he had played it and didn't enjoy it. Well, we have enough 4 & 5 year old kids in our neighborhood that a soccer league was formed, it cost a whopping $8 (maybe less) and so we signed J up. 

This is basically what it looks like when J plays soccer. There is a lot of standing around.

There are 5 or 6 kids on each team, here's a few from J's team, I think they are the cutest of all the teams, and cuteness is what counts, right?

J's next big foray into the world of sports was his very first "Kid Race". Since I started running races J has asked to run a "kid race". He would tell me how he was going to run so fast and he would beat everybody. Well on Halloween I signed up for the Utah Valley Half Marathon and they offered a free Kids 1K, so I signed J up. As you may know, stuff happened to me between the time I signed up for that Half Marathon and when it actually occurred on June 9th. In fact the first thing- my sprained ankle- happened just hours after I registered. In January I discovered how painful runners knee can be and then I was blessed with the experience of having 3 Surgeries in 7 weeks! I am one lucky gal, so I deferred my registration to 2013- it would have cost $10 to defer J's race and since it was free I figured we would let him run it.

So we went down to Provo, lost J in the crowd for a few minutes (apparently he felt the call of nature and hightailed it to a row of Porta-potties) Talk about heart attack......

We slowly made our way to the start of the 1k, I must admit, I felt jealousy, seeing all of those runners who had finished a Half or Full Marathon, oh how I wished I had run with them.

J found a Giant Panda, .......

Gave his running partner an encouraging hug,.......

did some stretches,......

and some more stretches.......

and then waited, directly under the start sign.

A 1K is about 2/3rds of a mile. Ken and J ran it together, holding hands for most of the race. Ken said that about half way through J stopped and asked if Ken would carry him. Nope, they walked a little, then ran the rest of the race. I cried a little when my boys crossed the finish line.

And here he is, my little Champion! He had told us that he was going to pass everybody, he discovered that lots of people run really really fast, but like his mom, he trudged on and FINISHED!

B was pretty happy with his reward for being the best cheering section a kid race has ever seen!

And that is the story of My Little Olympian! I'm pretty sure I will cry every time he finishes a race, no matter what kind of race it may be. I love that boy.