Half Marathon Training

The kids and I are getting geared up to run a half marathon in December. This will be my sixth half marathon and the kids first half marathon. Kirsten begged to get to run the race with me, so we both signed up in July. Alec also begged to run, but I thought that he was too young to do it. However, several of his friends were planning to run it, so I relented and signed him up to run it also. We are running the St. Jude Half Marathon in Memphis on December 3. They are so excited and I know that they will enjoy the day. This race is very well organized and the spectators are awesome. They really are not enjoying the long training runs that we are having to put it to be prepared for this race. I knew that this would be a struggle for them, but we are all learning alot about patience. Alec doesn't enjoy running as much as Kirsten does, but he is a much stronger runner than she is. They both have been faster than me for a long time and I fully expected them both to beat me to the finish line. However, I have recently lost 30 pounds and have really been pushing myself and have gotten quite a bit faster, so I may beat one or both of them on race day. The race is seven weeks from today so we still have a lot of miles to get in before we are ready. Kirsten has at least two friends that she hopes to run with that day, and Alec has one or two that he hopes to be able to run with. I hope that they will be fast enough on race day, because I know from experience that running a long race with people you know is a much more enjoyable experience than running it by yourself. I am trying to prepare them as much as possible for the endurance they will need to accomplish this goal. I have focused on the fun aspects of the race instead of the difficult ones. We will be discussing all parts of the half marathon many times over the next seven weeks. This has been a mostly enjoyable experience for all of us, spending significant portions of time running together towards a common goal. I also hope they learn many life lessons as we press towards this mark.