The Big Race

Each year the Marion County Physical Education's Wellness Association sponsors a Fitness Fun Run in Ocala for children and adults. We found out about it through the PE coach at school who sent a flier home. The cost for Run was $10 and that included the t-shirt that you receive for participating. This year the event was held at Jervey Gantt Park. Races are divided up by age levels and then by gender, with different distances and courses. As a six year old boy, Parker raced the 1/4 mile distance. His race was set for 9:15am and they let the six year old girls go first and then the boys. Parker was one of 13 boys in the race.

At the starting line. As you can see in the video below, Parker got off to a pretty good start. The problem was that the course wound around different things in the park and you had no real idea where you were headed. You followed the "rabbit" to guide you along - high school girls from a local cross-country team who wore a big set of bunny ears! Without being able to keep the end in sight, Parker wasn't quite sure about the whole thing while he was running. But he did finish the race and with a little burst of speed towards the end finished up in 10th place.

We stuck around afterwards to watch the boys' friend Lindsi from Druid Hills run in the race for 8 year old girls. They ran 1/2 a mile and Lindsi finished at 5:16. Here's she is coming into the finish area:

All in all, it was a pretty neat experience and Parker has a better idea of what to do for next time. Wesley is also looking forward to getting to race next year in the 4 year old race. The official at our race start also talked about an opportunity for kids to do a race each January inside the O'Connell Center on their indoor track at the University of Florida so we will be checking that out too.