Grannie Frannie Runs: Quality time with Frannie and the Third Offspring

Because it is all about the Bling and that I love running the Rock N Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon, I signed up to run it this year. My son Scott (aka - the Third Offspring) happened to be off work that weekend - so the plan was for me, Scott, and his girlfriend to go to Virginia Beach. Scott and I would do the run - girlfriend would take pictures and cheer.

Scott is 25 years old and has run 3 other half marathons with me over the last year. At each one, about mile 8, he says, "I think that next time I will train". I register him for a race, then send him gentle Motherly reminders in the form of training schedules and e-mails. He either forgets to train, has too much other fun stuff to do, or (like childbirth) forgets how painful it was the last time.

Once again, Scott did not train, but he had a goal of beating his last time of 2:52 with 2:45 as the ultimate goal. That would mean a walk/run pace of about 11:30. Not an unreasonable pace, but a pace that usually needs training for.

I am so proud of my son. I told him that we would probably have a run 5 minute / walk 1 minute pace. During mile 2-3, I was feeling so good - because this was such a comfortable pace for me - I forgot the walk part. Afterward, Scott says, "I remember listening to 3 straight songs on my iPod and we ran through all of them - we never walked!!"

I kept checking my watch and was very happy with our pace. At mile 7, I was confident that we would beat 2:45. Then mile 8 hit, and Scott's legs were talking to him.

We did a lot more walking then running for the last 3 miles. At mile 11, I started running and Scott said, we aren't going to make the time - so let's just walk some more. We stayed together until we saw the finish line.

During all the half marathons that my son and I have run - we stayed together until the end. For me, it was more about having the time together. I just counted them as long slow training runs. Then the finish line comes within reach - Scott starts to sprint and usually beats me by 0:02 seconds when the official results are released.

At Virginia Beach, the finish line is on the Boardwalk. It can be seen from about 1 mile away. Way to far to start sprinting. We were still doing the Walk/Run on the boardwalk. Then about 100 yards away, Scott picks up the pace. This guy hasn't been able to run for the last 2 miles - but he is running like he is running towards home plate with someone trying to throw him out. The end of the run was very congested and I could quite run next to him - he found a way to probably beat me by at least 2 seconds this time.

But unfortunately for him, when the results came out - our times were exactly the same - 2:58:45. The finish line photograph even shows him beating me by a few feet. Scott thinks that I should write in and have the times corrected.

Next family run is the Disney's Princess Half Marathon in February 2012.