5-minute 5-year-old

Headed out this morning to a grass oval at a nearby park. It was my first time running on a track, and it was quite odd. I started running, and felt really slow, but really exhausted. I was thinking: "how is this possible?! How can I be so out of breath?! I can't have got this unfit since Thursday!! What's going on?! I'm so slow!!"I kept running (or trotting/jogging, as I thought), and after about 1 & 1/2 laps (600m) started to feel better. After five minutes, one of the apps I was using to track my running spoke up, and informed me that I was averaging 4:30/km pace. that surprised me.

A. Lot.

In a good way though. ^_^

The other nice thing was that mrs tsuken and the tsukidlets accompanied me, and everybody did some running. I remain in awe of the beautiful form both my kids display when running, and aspire to someday get that good. I was particularly impressed this morning with the young master, who ended up running about a mile (not including the general running about and long-jumping he and his sister were doing): he went round the track four times (not all one after the other, but I think he did do two of them back to back).

Here you see him running with me, which was really nice. Looking at the graph of my pace, I can see the two occasions he was running with me. The first one was the first big upswing on the graph; the second is less obvious - the first slowing after the stopped period in the middle. I will point out that even that first one was pretty quick for little legs: it's in fact about the pace that the treadmills at the gym (for adults) call a "run" - 9km/hr, or 6:40/km. The second, which is much less apparent, really impresses me. I didn't actually slow down much as he joined me, and he kept up for almost the entire straight. Pace graph says we were doing just under 5:00/km, which I think is absolutely amazing for little 5 year old legs!

Anyway, here we both are, captured by mrs tsuken with her iPhone. Next time we go I'm going to stick the telephoto on my Lumix, and she can take some better pics. 8)

After the run we all headed to do the grocery shopping, and a song came on the stereo: "Fuel to Run" by Love/Hate. All about drinking and partying, but with my state of stomach ;-) I thought of some replacement lyrics - to be found here. xP