Amara still has 2.5 miles to make up in order to have officially completed the distance ( 26.2 miles).
She was very nervous!! She even took about 3 bathroom breaks in the 30 minutes before the race! She is a true athlete! I tried to explain to her the jitters and nervous excitement and that it was in fact, a good thing! I am not sure she believed me. She was very worried about not meeting her goal. I never asked her what it was, I thought that might make her feel even more pressured.
The Grand Rapids Kids Marathon was very organized. The kids were to start in waves...depending on your last name you were assigned an animal. Amara was a cheetah and in wave 2. She had on my Garmin of course! I did not notice any other kids with fancy GPS gadgets on..whatever.
We were off and running and she did really great! She seemed a lot more relaxed and dare i say focused?!?! She ran the whole way- I found out at the end of the race that that was her goal all along-not to walk! Her time was 13:36 ish. She was flying! The cool thing is that the kids started and ran on and finished at the same start/finish of the real marathon that took place on Sunday.
The kids were treated to water, yogurt, ice cream and apples after the race. The YMCA also had a harvest fest party that we went to after the race. There was lots of stuff going on-face and nail painting, pony rides, coloring cider and donuts and lots more.
I wished I had more action shots, but it would have been kind of hard running with a huge camera! Amara had gym today and you better believe that she is wearing her marathon medal around her neck!
