Father's Day

So clearly I'm tardy in posting this, but since Father's Day was this past weekend, I thought I would give a shout out to the man who first got me interested in running, my Dad. Growing up, my Dad used to tell me how he used to be the fastest runner in Elmo, Tx and how in high school his track coach used to make them run half marathons after school (I never believed him...). Growing up he always encouraged me in my running, being chosen to represent my first grade class in the 50 yard dash (I got the chicken pocks and couldn't compete, and yes I'm still bitter), running for the West U elementary track team in the second grade(?) and ultimately running cross country and track in high school. He was also the one who would take me to the running store and help me pick out the coolest spikes, running shoes, and clothes (and we still go check things out when I go back to Houston). I was never the fastest runner and I never ran a half marathon until college, but that was ok.

My father has always been my biggest fan and is always extremely vocal in his support. I once had to ban him from my basketball games for a bit because of how "vocal" he was...He also taught me how to be competitive and give it my all. He didn't believe in "babying" or the "you're a girl" mentality and let's just say that I learned some basketball lessons the hard way and I got beat in our foot races around the neighborhood. No, it didn't matter that I was 7 or 10 or 16, it was competition. My dad still maintains this mentality to this day. Even though he hasn't "run" in 10 years, he still managed to smoke me in a 5k we ran in Chicago last June and he came in second in his division. The back story is that even though he hasn't run in 10 years he bikes about 40 miles every weekend and is in great shape for his age. In my defense (or to soothe my bruised ego) I was coming off of a knee injury (which is why I switched from the half marathon I was supposed to run to the 5k) so I wasn't in peak condition, but that didn't mean he was going to take it easy on me. Let's just say it was pretty embarrassing to get beat by a guy twice my age and even more so since it was my Dad. Not to add insult to injury, but I also got pooped on by a sea gull right after we finished, so clearly it wasn't my day!

I actually still have his bib from that race up at my office as a reminder of how I got schooled, which is a GREAT way to motivate myself to go run or workout whenever I'm feeling lazy. Not that I'm competitive or anything, but looking forward to that 5k rematch Dad! Hope everyone had a great Father's day and got to celebrate all the wonderful reasons why fathers are great.