Our family ran in the Orem 6th Ward Fun Run today. The course was 2 miles. I was in charge of measuring the course, so I can vouch for its accuracy. It was also marked every quarter mile. The course had certain restrictions - it needed to start and finish at a particular location, and we needed to keep away from major traffic, so with those limitations I could not make it fast - it had some serious hills with grades reaching 6% for stretches 100 meters and longer, and one nasty bump with a 9% grade fortunately only 30 meters long, but quite a rhythm breaker. We had a family goal to average under 15:00 minutes among me, Sarah, Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, and Jacob. So a 40 year old father, 37 year old mother of eight with a 5 month old baby, a 14 year old boy, 12 year old girl, 10 year old girl, 8 year old boy, and a 6 year old boy trying to average 7:30 per mile pace over 2 miles. For each individual category you can find a runner that can go much faster than the target pace, but the challenge is to have them be in the same immediate family. There are some challenges - by the time all the children have been born and grown enough to run 2 miles at a good pace, can you preserve the father and the mother sufficiently that they will not kill the average? That is what made the challenge fun. Benjamin and I worked together trading quarters. There was another 14 year old boy named Logan in our ward that followed us, but he made it to about 600 meters. After that we were alone. Our splits were 77 (down), 81 (down), 76 (down with the bump), 80 (down, but feeling that 76 with the bump now) - this brought us to the mile in 5:14. Then after 180, 85 (up, recovering from the broken rhythm of the 180), 88 (this one had 100 meters of 3% grade and 200 of 6% climb), then 84 on a slight up. At this point I was struggling, while Benjamin maintained the pressure. With a quarter to go he dropped me and ran the last quarter on a slight uphill in 78 finishing in 10:49, last mile in 5:35. I had no kick and could only manage another 84 finishing second in 10:55. Logan was third in around 12:55 or so. Then we ran back to finish with the younger children. Joseph finished 4th overall in 14:33. Jenny was the first woman and 5th overall in 14:45. Then Jacob, 6th overall, 14:51, and Julia 7th overall and the second woman in 14:55. Then we ran back and found Sarah. She ran with her friend Shelly. Shelly kicked and finished in 17:30. Sarah got 17:35. So this gave us the average of 14:03 - almost a minute faster than our goal! Then we realized that our 4-year-old William was gone. He was not supposed to start the race, but he saw everybody run, so he just started running. So Benjamin, Jenny, and I went on the course to find him. We did. He was picked up by Jenny's friend Anna, and was walking/running with her and stopping for a drink or to mess around whenever he felt like. We joined them. He ended up covering two miles in 33 minutes. Then Benjamin and I ran a cool down, and then I added some more miles throwing in a pickup for 0.5 at 5:55 pace just to test the level of fatigue and made it 15.7 total. So Benjamin ended up with a total of 8, Jenny 3, Julia 2.5, Jacob 2.5, Joseph 2.5, and William who knows, but at least 1.5 of running I would guess.
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