Josh Reeves Memorial 5K--Henry's first race!

Our family recently participated in the first ever Josh Reeves Memorial 5K. First, a little background info. The Reeves family are members of our ward. We've known the parents and their children ever since we moved here. Josh (and one other grown sibling) were the only ones we didn't know, although I knew Josh's wife, Leslie.

Anyway, Josh was serving in Iraq up until last September when a roadside bomb exploded under the Humvee he was in. His passing happened at a particularly difficult time--Josh's first child, Jackson, was born here in the states just 24 hours earlier. So we love the Reeves family very much and this has been and continues to be a tough thing for them. So when we heard about the memorial 5k the UGA ROTC was doing, we, along with a lot of other ward members, signed up.

Of course, the problem was that we hadn't run a race in forever and had not been running. Well, for James it had been the Fall Festival 5K and for me it had been the relay race marathon last April. And we were both pretty out-of-shape. But it was good because it made us get back in shape. Before the race they had a tribute to Josh and his family. A large group from each military division--the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines--were there and they ran in formation by division and did their...I can't think of what it's called..chanting, shouting things with their commander during the entire race. It was rainy during the race but that actually felt pretty good. It was fun to run a race with lots of our friends from church.

This 5k also, by accident, became Henry's first race. Our friends were going to watch the boys while we ran but at the last minute the night before we found out they couldn't come. So we decided James would run the race himself and I would push the boys in the double stroller. But it actually turned out to be a good thing because Henry was so excited about being in the race. And I have to say he did a pretty amazing job. He ran about half of the 3.1 miles, including several hills and at a pretty good pace. Everyone we passed when he was running got a pretty big kick out of his clenched fists and determined face. He was very excited. At one point we were running up a hill and it was just starting to drizzle and Henry was laughing while he was running and my heart took a picture of it. You could just tell that his little boy heart was pretty happy in that moment.

So James finished the race in probably pretty good time, although we don't really know because he didn't see the big race clock they had at the end and assumed they didn't have one. :) So then he came back and got the boys from me and I got to run the last 1/2 mile of the race without the stroller. When James came up with the boys, everyone kept trying to get Henry to get out and run across the finish line of the race, but by that point he had had it and kept yelling at everyone, "No. I'm too tired!" Of course he perked up a bit when he found out that people who run the race get to eat donuts at the end, although not enough to smile for any of our pictures.

All in all, it was a really fun race. We want to always do stuff like this as a family and raise our kids participating in things like that. And it got us really back into running mode, which we really like to do. That and Emily Morrise's blogs about all of her running accomplishments. She's amazing! Her example has really inspired us and hopefully we can do some running together when we're out there this summer!