Chelsea's Run

Chelsea's Run

Last Friday night my wife and I strapped on our shoes and headed over to the fourth annual "Chelsea's Run," a 5K race in memoriam of a lovely young girl and a promising athlete that was tragically killed in a car accident a few years ago.

This was my second year at Chelsea's Run, traditionally run at 10:00 at night on July 15 (Chelsea's Birthday). It's a unique and fun crowd to run with - mostly family friends and high school students who come out to have a good time, run a little bit, have some free Gatorade, and show support for a great family in the local community. All profits go to set up a series of scholarships at BYU, and participants are encouraged to donate more than the entry fee to the fund. So, it's a good crowd, a good cause, and just a good family event for couples or friends who enjoy running together. Not chip-timed or anything, so anyone who shows up looking or acting too seriously will look and feel out of place.

I can't really give an accurate accounting of my pace and time: since the race starts so late in the evening, and since all of our available babysitters were running the race with us, I ended up bringing my kids to the race, with the intent of pushing them along in a stroller. This usually goes fine, but my youngest, who is now days away from her 2nd birthday, had an absolute meltdown just moments before the gun went off - she's at the unfortunate phase of life where ideas form in her head quite clearly, but she lacks the words and grammar to communicate them to her liking, or to our understanding. At first, she said that she wanted out of the stroller, so my wife, eager to get her race under way (this was after the starting gun), pulled her out and decided to walk the first little way to see if she could calm her down. I jogged on a few yards ahead, and instantly she started to scream, "Daddyyyyy! Daddyyyyy!" So we traded - my wife caught up to me, passed me the girl, and took off with the stroller.

"Mommeeeeeee! Mommeeeee!"

We did the switch again.

"Daddeeee! Daddeeeee!"

This happened 3 or 4 times.

"Whassamatter? Do you want to run?"

"Yes!" sob, sob, sob.

"Well then you have to be in the stroller. Is that okay?"

"Okay!" All smiles and giggles.

So in the stroller she went and my wife and I took off. I think the whole exchange probably took about two minutes or so. I crossed the finish line at about 25:50, so, you know, whatever. What I did feel good about was that, while pushing 50 lbs in a jogging stroller and having a two-minute delay at the start, I ended up catching and then passing my sister-in-law, a college soccer player and very fit. Hooray! Maybe next year, Becca...

It brings up an interesting question, though - does pushing a jogging stroller affect one's pace at all? Since they have very little rolling resistance, I'd have to think that maybe no, unless one takes into consideration the mental drag that the runner experiences, trying to navigate the stroller around the madding crowds. In our case this becomes quite a task. Our stroller doubles as a bike trailer, so the bar that connects to the bike sticks out of the front like a bayonet. I remember after my first 10K talking to a lady who had been taken out by a jogging stroller. As a result, she had twisted her knee pretty badly, and was understandably miffed about it. So, last Friday I was pretty careful to take the outside turns and be pretty vocal if I were coming up behind someone that I couldn't pass so that I could avoid a similar collision.

My favorite part of the race: as we were loading up my kids into the car to take them home, my oldest daughter (3 1/2) turned to me and said, "Daddy, can I have running shorts for my birthday so I can race with you next time?" You bet, kid. You bet.

End transmission.