LaFarge Grand Prix

My 9 year old daughter ran her first cross country race this past week.  She is lightweight at most, and compared to most 9 year girls, for height, she is on the bottom end of the spectrum.  I'm theorizing that she will have to run double the steps to keep up with some of her longer legged classmates.  But I am glad that she is going to try this.  I generally like to stand near the finish line as that is the most exciting spot for a runner.  With much anticipation and no expectations, I wait there for the race to begin. 

Once the starting horn bellows, I see a mass of little girls take flight; a huge clump running together.  And in the middle of that flock, I see Chloe with her fluorescent orange and yellow running shoes. They eventually approach a small hill and start running through some trees. I lose sight of them.  I am watching at the other end of the opening to see who is going to emerge from the trees.  I hear feet pounding….. It is only the pace rabbits.  A few seconds later, I see fluorescent
orange and yellow running shoes emerge, attached to some chopstick thin legs, and long, black hair flying behind her like a cape.  CHLOE!

 

Much to my surprise, she comes in ahead of the pack and goes on to win the race. While her cheeks are hot pink, she hadn’t even broken into a sweat.  So I ask her, “Aren’t you tired?”
 

“A little”, she replies.  “There’s a part when I got to the top of the hill, I wanted to stop, but I didn’t.  And I wanted to spit, but I couldn’t ‘cause I kept running”.

Beyond pride in her physical endurance, I am most impressed by her strength of will.  She doesn’t realize what she had just described to me was her digging deep and pushing through her pain.  She felt like she wanted to quit and maybe even spit (which I’m going to interpret as the urge to vomit from my hard running experiences...haha), but she didn’t stop. Those are 9 year old words of perseverance.  And whether she had come in at the front of the pack or at the end, in my eyes, she had won that race.