Second Born's triumph!

First piece of business: Second Born is not happy at being referred to as Second Born or SB. He wishes henceforth to be known as BB (Best Boy). I pointed out this could also stand for Bad Boy, prompting him to make a rude noise which kind of made my point for me. But since this is my blog, SB he remains until he can afford to pay me to change it.

He woke up on Saturday morning in a positive mood for the race - the Tesco Junior Great Winter Run. We had a serious discussion about what he should wear and since it was about minus 2 and the frost was thick and white on the ground, he agreed that a long sleeved top and jogging bottoms were the order of the day. We made it down to Holyrood Park in good time for the 10am start and grabbed ourselves a vantage point near the start/finish line. The course was supposed to be 2.5km over road and grass but due to the weather, this was changed at the last minute to be all on-road and slightly shorter.

I walked SB up to the start area and left him to get ready. I had been slightly worried that he might "freak out" at this point as he has never run without me at the start, but I needn't have been. He cheerily waved me off, though he did say rather grimly when the aerobic warm-up was announced "I am NOT doing aerobics!". That's my boy.

The older kids, 11-13 years, went off first, followed 30 seconds later by the 7-10 year olds. SB was therefore one of the youngest kids running. He was the absolute last person over the start line but he looked fine - he was obviously not going to go haring off too fast and had settled into a rhythm almost straight away:


The leading runners (aka the big kids) started coming back in about 5 minutes flat. SB took a bit longer and I had every single finger crossed that he would be okay. I knew that if he had a bad experience, it could put him off this sort of stuff for good and I really wanted him to enjoy it. Again, I needn't have worried. He appeared round the final bend and absolutely sprinted for the line.

He ran it in 10 minutes 59. Little star. And yes, it was just as cold as it looks in those photos!
After this photo was taken he discovered that his goody bag contained one of those space-age tinfoil blankets you see marathon runners swathed in. Three guesses whether this was immediately opened and worn round Holyrood Park.

We hung around and waited for the senior Great Winter Run so we could wave at the son of a friend who was running and I jumped up and down partly to keep warm and partly because a little bit of me wished I was running too. I made do with a cappucino and the reflected glow from my son instead.