The Big Race & a Puzzle

It is fall in Virginia. The leaves are changing colors, and they look fantastic. Along with that comes the yearly Falcon / Bruin 1 Mile Fun Run and 5k, put on by the elementary school (Falcons) and high school (Bruins). Since school has started things have been very busy for our family. We have not had much time after school for the kids to practice running. Trevor does swimming twice a week and Alexa does dance, so they do get exercise, but we have only tried running 3 or 4 times leading up to the run. Based on that we did not know how they would do. It was Alexa's first time running, so I ran with her. Trevor ran on his own for the first time. (They do a girls race and a boys race.)

Seeing her friends and all the other kids running helped motivate Alexa to run a good portion of the route. She ended up with a great time of 12:19.

Here she is with one of her friends from church, and their medals for running the race:

Trevor has been getting a lot stronger from all the swimming he does, so we were hoping that would translate to a better running time this year. He ended up taking over 2 minutes off of last years time! he finished in 10:46.

As I announced at the family meeting, I was hoping to run the 5k in under 24 minutes. I had been able to do that on the treadmill, but I never know for sure how that translates to the open road, with real hills and cold air. I also have been battling a cold the past few days, and have getting fatigued faster than usual. I felt mostly better on Saturday morning, and during the race I was able to find a good group to pace myself with. I ended up with an official time of 23:36, which I am very happy with.

Trevor and I have also been working on a project recently, which we finished up this past week. He cut out a Halloween puzzle and painted it. He did a very good job for his first real scroll saw project: