Don't Wear A Wonder Bra To Sports Day

Anna's School Triathlon

This was the setting for Anna's school sports day on Friday. Not a bad backdrop I think you'll agree. I didn't get to participate last year, but as her school is a 'progressive' school, being an 'involved' parent is encouraged, so I was there in my standard Mum black capri yoga trousers at 8:30am looking both helpful and sporty.

That proved to be my downfall.

The first event was the run. The little kids would start first, followed by the 'big ones'. Anna's teacher was explaining the route as I sipped my travel mug o' coffee. I heard "Alison, could you do that?" and realized I shouldn't have been making a mental grocery list, I should really have been paying attention.

Turns out they needed a front marker, to stop the little darlings hurtling like lemmings off the cliff or in to traffic. I looked around me at the gaggle of under 7's, and feeling dizzy with the confidence that I'm running a half marathon in a week, I said "sure!" because at least it got me out of bathroom duty.

In hindsight, I think Anna's teacher might actually hate me.

Something I hadn't realized as the mother of two girls. Young boys are fast runners. The route was up the cliff in the photo you see above, and then for a further mile uphill until the turnaround point. As the gun went off I started jogging up the bike path surrounded by a herd of tiny boys all desperate to out-sprint each other. I kicked the pace up a notch and they stayed right with me. I looked like I was being pursued by a swarm of angry black bees. As we neared the top of the cliff I was rather hoping they'd start to slow. 'The thing with inexperienced runners' I thought to myself sagely, 'is they don't know how to pace themselves'.

In actual fact, the thing with 7 year old boys is, they don't need to pace themselves. They are bottomless pits of energy. We raced around that course like our lives depended on it. The only time we slowed was when I pretended I didn't know which path to take - but it was for the time it takes a hummingbird's wings to flap once, and then we were off again, hurtling towards the finish. I must have clocked two four minute miles.

I was gracious enough to let the leader pass me at the finish, so he could truly claim his glory, and then when the other bees in my swarm buzzed past the finish I gave them a hearty eyebrow raise, as that was all I could muster after my two mile sprint.

All I could think of was that if I'd been foolish enough to agree to the same thing last year I would very probably have died, surrounded by a gaggle of 5-7 year olds all wondering where they hell they went next.

I'm actually quite proud of myself for tearing around the course and not being bested by Skyler or Jayden or Indigo. Of course my left knee now has a worrying achy click, and I will never turn up to sports day again wearing a push-up bra, but hey, it's a small price to pay, right?

Anna crossing the finish at a much more sedate pace.