Yesterday one of my dreams came true. I ran a race, like a proper, organised race with my children. It was the 10km Blackmores Bridge Run in Sydney.
The three of us registered, trained, braved the registration event at town hall to collect our bibs, then got up early on the day, caught the train there, felt nervous together, and we ran the race.
It was hot, it was hard but we all kept going, and heck, we ran our best.
And at the end, we magically managed to find each other amongst the 16,000 people, which was fantastic given we all finished at different times.
And running together (albeit separately within the actual race) was so much better than I could have ever imagined.
And to be clear, it wasn’t about the event, (which wasn’t actually very well organised), but that is another story for another column. It was the fact we managed to achieve something as a family.
We shared breakfast afterwards talking about our challenges, the toughest bits of the race. Was it running over the bridge? Was it the part up the really big hill? What about the lack of water stations? And that sun!
We workshopped the runners around us who had annoyed us, the champion runners in front of us and even the emergency crew on the sidelines.
As we walked through the streets of Sydney back home after breakfast, a random stranger stopped us pointing at our bibs and medals and asking what race we had been running, and my children explained.
“The family who run together have fun together – and stay together” he said. Lets hope he’s right. I never knew fitness could be so bonding, or that family dreams really do come true.
