Last Saturday Lilly did her first run – 400 m at the Valley Harvest Marathon in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. We’ve been talking about this run with Lilly for weeks and even running with her when we take our dog out for a walk. She loves to run and she loves that Mommy and Daddy run to. She actually thought it was my job to run….god love her. Before the race we hit up our local farmers market and met my parents there: Grandad a.k.a. videographer and Grammy a.k.a. babysitter for Hilary.

I talked to Lilly about her run and that mommy wasn’t allow to run with her but she would run around the red track all by herself…with her friends of course. She was fine with that. I even talked to her about falling…that if you fall, you can get back up and keep running. Well, thank goodness we had that talk because about 85% into the run she fell after another girl stopped right in front of her without any warning. Poor girl. Good thing Grandad was near by, he got her up and then I ran with her to the finish line.

Pre-Race:

She was really excited and was having lots of fun playing with her friends.

T-shirt and bib on…ready to go. Little sis hanging with Grammy and then she was a little unsure at the start!

But she has these awesome socks from one of her boy-friends to make her run FAST!

Lilly was super excited to be running and to run with her friends. However, the organizers broke them up to boys/girls for their run. Lilly’s friends were really upset that they couldn’t all run together. And to be honest, at this age (under 5) I wasn’t too happy they were broken up into boys/girls. They have a life time of being in gender specific groups and fighting for equal opportunities, why at this run? {little rant, sorry}.

Once the race got underway it was hard to keep up with her and take pictures. She runs like her father; tall posture. Happy as can be. Go Lilly Go!

Left – before race = Happy.

Middle – after race checking out her medal and a little upset that she fell.

Right – Lilly and Mommy

And then the medal!!! Valley Harvest Marathon – Kids Run 400 meters for Lilly and a pretty cool T-shirt that she’ll grow into.

We asked her after the race if she would do it again next year…she said “No”!

However, later that night she changed her mind and said yes.

How was your weekend?

What was your first race like?

What was your child(ren)’s first race like?