Run Happy

At karate today Lucas' Sensei had the kids running in a big circle.  She would intermittently have them stop, do kicks, blocks, or punches, and then start running again.  Then she would have them stop, change directions, and start running again.  The interesting thing to observe during this exercise was the  level of participation, and the look on the kid's faces.  There are about 20 four to eight year olds in the class, the vast majority are boys.  You can imagine the hijinks that go on in that class on a weekly basis.  Someone is always punching a mat on the wall, kicking the air, needing to go pee, totally zoned out and missing their turn, picking their nose, and someone's belt falls off approximately 32432589634 times each class.  But when she told them to run, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them ran.  Not only was each of those children completely engaged in the activity, but each child had a huge grin on their face.  Seriously, you would have thought they won the lottery, and the jackpot was a lifetime supply of Smarties and chocolate milk.  These kids were the epitome of Run Happy.

source

Now it's pretty clear that I love running.  Running is a huge part of my life, and it brings me a huge amount of happiness.  But I'll tell you what, when I am racing, you would never guess that I love what I am doing.  The level of exertion involved in pushing myself to run at my desired race pace is always evident on my face.  I swear I am happy, and that's why I keep signing up for longer and longer and LONGER races, but good grief try to catch me with a smile on my face for a race photo, or even a non-grimacing face, not possible!  This Sunday we are running The Around The Bay 30K.  Our plan is to use this race more as a training run in preparation for The Ottawa Marathon, so we do not have a time goal.  So I have decided that in this race my goal is to actually look like I am running happy, to project what I feel about running outwards, so I don't have to cringe and hit delete when my race photos arrive in my inbox.



In other Karate news...Lucas broke a board with his fist tonight.  It was AWESOME!!!  He has his grading next week to get his gold stripe belt.

Tough guy busting through a board!

-Lex