I've been run/walking on the treadmill and trying to increase the amount running versus walking. I would like to run/walk a 5K on Saturday with the boys and Charlotte. A few weeks before Charlotte was born, I took the boys down for a 5K at school (in honor of a wonderful graduate who was killed along with her mother and father in a plane crash last summer). I wanted to walk it, and the boys wanted to run it. Neither one really had a concept of the distance, but I talked to both of them about not going out too fast and stopping to walk if they needed to. When it started, Caleb went out at a reasonable speed. Eli shot out and was in front for about .10 of a mile. I knew he would flag, but I just kept walking behind, thinking I would catch up eventually. The next time I saw him (the course looped around our school), he was running with a man, holding his hand. I wasn't worried about the strange man since this was a small 5K, runners all connected to our school or the family, but I felt bad because I knew Eli was holding him back. I cut around the course eventually to make sure he knew he didn't have to stay with Eli, and the man turned out to be a second cousin of Chuck's, Chris, that I didn't recognize from a distance. Apparently, after "the big boys" started passing Eli, he started yelling "Help! Someone help me! I want to win!" Chris stopped to help and explain that he would win if he finished! Chris walked and ran with him (and then eventually Caleb, who had wandered onto the track looking for me, crying because he was hot and couldn't figure out where I was) the whole rest of the race. They held hands and talked the entire time. It was the sweetest thing to watch. | 