Witch Way 5k

I had one of those "Not Mom of the Year" moments yesterday.  Justice has been feeling really sick lately, and was pretty much down for the count the entire fall break from school.  Around a month ago he contracted that awful intestinal flu that Bo had.  He was REALLY sick, and even missed three days of school.  That is unheard of for Justice, he usually goes to school no matter how badly he feels.  He lost a considerable amount of weight and was feeling really puny when he came down with a respiratory infection.  He has had a fever, sore throat, and has been coughing his head off for over a week.  He was feeling a little better and then got his flu shot and was sick all over again.  We rested all of fall break to make sure he was ready to go back to school.

The weather was gorgeous up until the beginning of the week, when a cold front came through and brought with it a whole bunch of rain and some cold temperatures.  He drug himself to Jack's soccer games this morning and coughed the whole time.   I told him he should have stayed home, but he really wanted to get out of the house.  Ok, fine.  

While we were at Jack's game, the local parks director mentioned to Joe and Justice that they were having a Halloween themed 5K that night and the money raised would pay for upgrades to the soccer fields.  Sounded great, right?  Except for the fact that it was 45 degrees outside, wet, windy and my boy was sick as a dog.

And you know what I did?  I said "Sure, you can run it.  That's fine with me."  The Coach looked at me sort of sideways, but I mean honestly if Justice says he's well enough to run a 5k then I will take his word for it.  If he was too sick he wouldn't want to do it.  For those of you that don't know, Justice and Joe work out together nearly every day.  Justice gets up very early in the morning and he and The Coach either run 6 miles or they work out in the garage.  They are incredibly close and I am grateful for the relationship that they have.  I'm thankful that The Coach participates with him in whatever sport he wants to play, and I'm thankful he's healthy enough at age 47 to be able to run with him and work out with him every morning.  Even though they run together all the time, they have never run a race together.  This was the first time.  

I took Justice to the local sporting goods store to get some cold-weather running tights.  And this is when the realization of how darn skinny my boy is really came to light.  I handed him the youth large tights off the rack to try on, and they were HUGE.  So I then handed him the medium size, and they were still too big.  My poor boy ended up with a youth small (size 6/8) tights.  

Before the race.  I think it's cute they match, it was Justice's idea.  

Justice coughed his head off for an hour after he got home, but he says he felt fine.  One thing is for sure, he had a GREAT time.  They were a little upset that the course wasn't marked off very well.  There wasn't anybody in front of them to follow so they got lost on the course.   Neither was happy with their time, they tell me they lost around three minutes with the course problem. 

Justice finished in 24:53, third overall and 2nd in Mens Division.

Joe finished in 24:54, fourth overall and 3rd in the Mens Division.  

Notice the one second difference?  Justice said "There was no way I was letting my old man beat me" so he jumped up ahead at the last second to get the win.  Ha!  Poor Joe!

They have already registered for their next race.  I think this is the beginning of a fun and competitive sport that they can actually compete in together, rather than The Coach coaching the player.

I'm really just thankful for a healthy husband and a happy son.