It's become an annual tradition of ours to head down to St. Peter the first weekend in June to run in the Livestock 5k race. Our good friends, the Lundquists, organize the race portion of the Livestock festival (a day of music and family activities to raise money for WorldVision). But this year the 5K wasn't a true race--it was a fun run. Jen and Drew, being the avid runners that they are, weren't sure how people would feel about doing a run that wasn't an official race, but when the number of participants jumped from 160 or so last year to over 700 this year, I'd say they made a good decision in going with the Colordash run. Plus, our kids thought it was the best thing ever!!
Our plan was to do the same thing we did last year...we spent the night at Lundquists on Friday after a fun dinner out in St. Peter (and after many attempts to calm our excited children down), Matt and Drew got up around 4:30am to go setup the cones for the course, Jen left just before 6am and their babysitter came about the same time. I was planning on taking the older four kids--Kael, Wyatt, Elli, Sadie--while their sitter stayed with Blake and Beckham. The kids and I were already to leave around 8am when Matt came back to Lundquist's. He saw Blake's disappointment that he wasn't going to be coming to the race and quickly caved, telling me that Blake would be just fine to run the race with all of us. Oh boy! The poor kid only had flip flops!
Pre-race in their nice clean t-shirts
Our running crew
The girls took it upon themselves to do a little stretching before the race
Matt and Drew and the boys
When we picked up our nice clean t-shirts, they let each person pick up a small bag of the color powder and of course our kids immediately threw it all over each other.
And for whatever reason, the girls thought it best to color their hair with it. (It's all cornstarch based so it's completely safe, but I had a heck of a time getting it out!)
And we're off!!
Blake did a great job and was even leading the girls to start off!
Trying to catch up to the big boys
But he did need the first rest! He made it over 1/2 mile, which is good for a 3 year old!
This is what the color stations looked like...you can see Wyatt and Kael on the right hand side of the picture. I tried to stay as far away as possible from the color but the kids, of course, tried to get as much as they could.
These girls weren't messin' around
Blake playing catch-up to Kael
I love this picture...check out Matt's face as he ran through the color station!
It's very telling to run a 3.1 mile race with kids....Kael definitely had the most endurance (which is fitting since both his parents run quite a bit and his dad averages about 6:30 min mile pace for marathons!), Wyatt was the sprinter, Elli also had more endurance than Sadie but both girls rarely complained and just kept plugging along...and then Blake, who rarely complained but just couldn't keep up and got the most frustrated over that fact!
Here was the home stretch--the blue color station lead up to the finish line. At this point in the race, everyone was tired. But there are some who inherently push ahead when their body tells them to quit or it gets tough and there are some who instinctively want to quit and their parents have to teach them how to push forward......
....bet you can't guess who that might be?!
The after pictures!!
(And that certain someone was still not happy even when it was over because it was just so hard and we're stilling learning how to push through when things get really hard....not an easy thing to learn--or teach--so we keep reminding ourselves it's a process!!)
Don't you love the drips of blue sweat on Kael's forehead!?
Let's take another look at that hair---at the time I had no concept of how hard it would be to get out, but after showering the girls for a solid 45 minutes of scrubbing and washing and still not getting it all out, I have a better understanding!
Since we did finish is fairly good time, there were still a lot of people coming across the finish and the kids thought it would be fun to jump in and give some assistance to the volunteers at the blue station....
You can barely even seen my child!
Now everyone's happy!!! And just a bit blue!
Which only left us with one way to get them home without turning everything they touched blue....
To say that it took awhile to get out all the color would be a gross understatement....by the end of the boy's shower, Blake was crying because his entire body was a raisin, albeit still a blue raisin. And Wyatt and Kael had blue on their scalp for days! But it was a blast and we definitely made some great memories AND raised money for a great cause.
On to the food and music portion of the day....
Apparently these little guys saw no need for picking up their milkshakes....the beauty of being 3 ft tall!
And these girls were pleased as punch to get the same T-shirts in the Livestock-gear booth!!
Thanks again to Drew and Jen for having us and letting us 'help out'! My kids are already talking about next year!
