Satisfied but not Taking Credit

The Lad riding the last stretch to the 

finish of his first 5K.

For about six years, I have been a rather serious runner and the highlight of many of my races has been high-fiving Gabriel, giving him a kiss as I pass by or grabbing his hand at the finish to run the last 50 metres and let him get my medal.

I am not getting too carried away with early plans for his running career and heading into "runner dad" mode - if there is such a thing.  He is still too young to put that kind of wear and tear on his body and I'd insist on him minimizing his running until he is in junior high at least. However, he enjoys sprinting down the corridor of our apartment building when we are coming home from daycare and he is familiar with my running rituals and idiosyncrasies. I've actually made more effort to interest him in photography than running, but he might be taking the sport into his own hands. After each of my races lately, he has taken my race number to keep in his room and he keeps a few of my medals on the closet door in his bedroom.

On December 31, I ran in a 10K race to finish the year and told my wife about the opportunity to walk 5K at the same time. Once we confirmed Gabriel could join her without having to pay an additional registration fee, she signed up with the plan to bring him along for a walk.  My plan was to finish my 10K and then backtrack on the route to meet them as the completed their walk. Much to my surprise, however, they had covered more than half their distance when I crossed paths with them. Gabriel had amped up the urge to run the first half of the 5K, dragging Nadine along until he conked. (Nadine suggested that I (of all people) needed to work with him on his pacing. I'm not the best example of that.)  Throughout his run, he earned praise from the walkers that he blitzed past in the flash-upon-foot-strike sneakers he raced in. He ate up the camaraderie of the race. By the time I caught back up to them, he was beat and tired. He rode my shoulders the last 500 metres to the finish.

Since that race, Gabriel has taken his running to another level.  After a few months of him insisting that I taken his hand and run him as fast as I can for a little sprint, he has run off ahead of me on our regular walks to the LRT or other regular destinations.  The biggest thing for me is that it is so much faster than was the case when he was prone to get distracted by a stick on the ground, a rabbit or an excavator.

It will be interesting to see if this is nothing more than a passing phase that ends as soon as I hit "post" on this addition to the blog or if he remains interested. The biggest thing right now is how well he sleeps when he covers a lot of distance in a given day, but given how conscious everyone is about children's fitness, it is good that he enjoys it as much as he does. As we ran home from day care today, Gabriel boasted about how much energy he was getting from his run - confirming my facetious concern that the regular exercise was more likely to enhance his endurance than wear him out. However, given how few boys and men run compared to women, it could be an opportunity to not only maintain his fitness but get some satisfaction in the achievements he might accrue. In the last half-marathon I completed, there weren't any teenage male competitors.  If he has inherited my (knock on wood) resilience and the other physical assets that have allowed me to continue improving at my age, he can find the release and satisfaction in that outlet.

I just have to keep him off asphalt for the next 10-15 years - the ultimate "do as I say and not as I do."

Walking Boy

A simple goal for Gabriel is for him, when the time comes, to walk to school.  It seems a simple goal, perhaps even an odd one to set or aspire to, but as someone who walked to school throughout Primary in 1972-1973, I'm motivated to make sure he manages this, especially since it is a shorter walk.  Too many children are bussed to school or ferried by their parents.  Apart from the concerns about the sedentary thumb-flexing routines of children today, I just want to have him walk a bit and get a sense of independence sooner rather than later.

After having Gabriel in a daycare closer to my wife's work than to home, we have had the luxury of placing him in a daycare merely 500 metres away from home.  With that, we have had the opportunity to walk home at the end of the day and there have been a few occasions where he wants to have me walk him to school at the start of the day as well.

The walk is usually a distracted dawdle as the seasons invite him to pick rocks or dandelions to bring home to mom or a preoccupation with whatever leaves and branches hail or strong winds may have thrown into his line of sight.  There is also the regular stop outside the fence of the daycare for him to bid farewell to his friends who are "still on the inside" and have yet to be picked up.  As our first winter of walking home passed we relished the first opportunity to walk home in daylight and I was happy to assure him we would have daylight for the walk for the next eight months.

On Saturdays, thanks to a theft of Gabriel's stroller, the test was a much more ambitious sequence of walks for the routine of story time at the library, the traditional pizza lunch that has been a part of my Saturdays for over 8 years now and then on to Mount Royal University for music class.  It is a long day, with a departure around 10:30 in the morning, two trains, two busses, a few lengthy walks uphill and a return home by 4:30 or 5pm.

On the occasion that the stroller's departure was realized, I grit my teeth in anticipation of how quickly he would walk and how much energy he'd have after a few long walks.  I dreaded the possibility of him trudging into his music class only to depart early because of a meltdown that would try the patience of his gracious instructor.  If he whined that he was tired, I was ready to loft him onto my shoulders and carry him along if need be.

Nothing.  Throughout the day that we were first thrust into the routine, Gabriel never uttered a complaint.  He actually liked being able to grab a seat on the train or the bus and interact with other passengers, not to mention the diggers and other construction equipment that are the only things that ever line his routes through the world.  He was great throughout the day, only to fall asleep on my lap on the last bus home to leave a puddle of drool on my denims.

Apart from putting in the mileage, the regular travel has made him familiar with the travels.  He knows the name of his stop on the LRT.  He knows to watch the traffic and press the button (about 9 to 11 times) for the walk light at the busy intersection between daycare and home on our afternoon walk.  I suspect that he is more capable than I am prepare to test to make his way to the playground near our house and to the library on his own.

Despite his potential to do those walks on his own, I'm in no rush to thrust that independence upon him.  I wonder if he would be able to make those walks on his own without drawing the suspicion of an adult who would raise an eyebrow and the possibility that the independence is required because of abandonment.  Colleagues of mine with school aged children have already admonished me for even thinking of letting Gabriel walk to school on his own when the time comes.  I also know that no matter how capable Gabriel would be at walking to the closest supermarket and traversing the LRT tracks and busy street that are in his way, the biggest issue would be the dismaying sight of an 8-year-old heading to the Safeway to buy a loaf of bread on his own.

That prospect is at least 5 years away, but there I already have to acknowledge that there will be pressure to put that off until he is much older than I was when I ventured on similar chores with the mantra of eggs, bread, milk dissolving in my mind and learning whatever there was to learn about my neighbourhood and myself in that interlude of the day.