In his Daddy's footsteps

It's no secret that running is a big part of life at the Beard house, and Garrett is already into it. His latest pretend play scenario has been playing doctor, in which I'm the doctor, and he's the injured runner coming to me with some kind of gash from running into a tree branch during his "five-dy nine" mile run.

This weekend, Ryan has a 100K, and Garrett is signed up for a 1 mile Fun Run for kids the day before. Ryan signed him up immediately, and then we started getting concerned that he might not be able to do a whole mile. Our worries were laid to rest yesterday when Ryan took Garrett for a run on our neighborhood trail. G could hardly stand it, he was so excited to go running with Daddy. He insisted on carrying Ryan's water bottle for the long 17 minute jog. He got a little tired, but kept going (with much encouragement and a few Jedi mind tricks from Daddy) to finish the mile!

On the way to school today, I told Garrett how proud I was of him and asked if he knew that his race was going to be in the same place that Daddy ran Cactus Rose. He paused, and then said, "but there's cactus." I assured him there wouldn't be, but he said "but Daddy had cuts all over his legs." True. I explained that Daddy had to run in cactus because he ran 100 miles and that Joe, the race director, would make sure that the mile he was going to run would be in a spot with no cactus. Let's all say a prayer that Joe, the master of torture when planning Cactus Rose, had his head on straight and really did plan a flat, clear kids' course. Anyway, G said he'd like to run 100 miles. He added, "It takes a lot of power and energy and a lot of water and salt. If you don't have enough salt, you can't run. I don't really like salt, though. I like pepper better." Whatever the seasoning, I can't wait to see my sweet boy run across that finish line, just like Daddy.