Gillian started her fun runs tonight. She now had to move into the ½ mile group. I had warned her prior to going that she would be younger than a lot of the kids and not to be discouraged if she didn’t come in first. I gave her the usual competitive pep talk in our house – if anyone falls, keep running; if you fall, get up and start running again; just keep running.
So she took off with everyone and headed straight for the back of the pack. I couldn’t really figure out what she was doing because she didn’t know any of the other kids so I knew she wasn’t staying there because she knew them. As they got closer I realized one of the children was crying…Gillian does not deal well with crying. She didn’t seem to know what to do about it (her usual response to anyone crying is panic). So I’m yelling telling her to keep running so she proceeds on as the child’s mother gets her son out of the way.
Then she catches up to another kid and proceeds to run so close that she is almost tripping him rather than run around him she just stays right on his heels. So I’m yelling to pass and she just stays right there for the entire race…lol
So you can imagine the conversation in the car on the ride home about next week’s run. You must pass people. You are going to hurt yourself and others running that close to people. If someone is crying you can’t help them so don’t wait for them. Basically this is a heartless sport and the goal is to be first over the finish line…lol
Competitive parenting at its best! For a child that will have a meltdown after losing a board game she takes not coming in first quite well in sports. All she cared about is getting a popsicle…that was the win to her. I wish life was that easy.
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