Winter Series Race - a surprising result

This was a race that I was fully expecting my 14 year old son to beat me by at least a minute.  At the start he shot out with reckless abandon that both frightened me that the beat down was going to be greater than I expected - or he was going to blow up.  I, on the other hand tried to start out at a steady pace on the 1/3 mile paved section to start.

As we entered snow packed trails and began the climbing section I was quickly passing people and moving quite well.  The race was basically 1 1/2 miles of mostly rollers rolling up, the last 1 3/4 was mostly downhill rollers.  So my plan was to try to maintain a steady effort till the turn around and then push into discomfort land on the head for home stretch.

As I was nearing the turn around alas I saw my son starting to come back to me, it was clear that he was struggling and I would catch him.  The thought entered my mind to stay behind him and hope he would shake out of whatever funk or ailment he had.  Or I could come up alongside him and hang with him the rest of the race.

I caught him, asked if he was okay to which he replied he had stepped wrong and jammed his leg but he would be fine.  So I eased passed him and encouraged him to hang tough.  He did.  I finished ahead of him and turned back after the finish line to watch him come flying home passing people with great determination.  I was super glad for him.  So, our races were done but we had more peeps to cheer in to the finish.

Both his sisters were also running.  My 13 year old was running alone and my 8 year old was running with her Mom.  So I started jogging back up the trail to cheer them in and run in with the older one.  I kept going and didn't see her.  The further I went up the trail I was expecting to see her - yet she wasn't there.  And then my youngest came by just ahead of her Mom.  Mom told me they had passed the older one and she wasn't doing well.  So, I went further up the trail and finally found the poor thing, exhausted.

We ran together to the finish and I walked her straight to the car where she could sit down.  Poor kid was tired from a busy week of school and some late nights.  I was proud she gutted out a finish.  As for my baby - wow.  Not only did she beat her older sister, she won her age group (1-9 yr olds) and set a new age group course record for that age group!!  Ice cream celebration time!!!

Race 2 in a couple of Saturdays.  My son has revenge with me in mind.  My oldest daughter wants to catch her younger sister and as for the little one: well she had more energy than all of us after the race.  I am looking forward to seeing how the next 3 races play out for her and the rest of us.