Granted, all four of my nieces / nephews are pretty damn talented at something, but I think this one's taken the cake.
Kid's in a running club and laps around the school two times in a school week. Four laps makes a mile. And that doesn't count whatever he does at home, which is likely quite a bit. So when the running becomes a loved thing enough that he wants to enter a five mile marathon, the supportive dad naturally allows it. It's described to my nephew that he's running with his age group, which is what he tells my brother.
Brother: "Heck, if this just kids running five miles, I'll be able to drop him off and find a good spot to watch."
Nope. Turns out there
were multiple age groups being recorded... simultaneously. Nephew would be running with everyone from five to sixty, all at once. So the naturally worried dad realizes "Oh
, if he gets tripped up or something, he could get trampled". But what's he to do? Stop him from racing?
Nope. With big work boots on, wallet in pocket, thick chain attached to keep it in place, and no belt, he joins impromptu to tag along for the better part of five miles. Not officially entered, not questioned for staying alongside his son... and not able to keep up with his son, for the most part.
For the start of the race, that's expected. Smaller legs get a quicker start, and an eight year old has most adults beat for that department. Nephew fires off and leads the entire race for a while until the well practiced adults get their groove and take over. One particularly fun mention in this case is a ~60 year old marathon runner who's just tearing through it, ended up first place at a few seconds short of 20 minutes.
Nephew, though? Tore ahead of my brother (who could only get back in place with him because the course had a loop around a block before going in a new direction), turned many heads from the few adult runners who couldn't believe a little eight year old was so far ahead of the pack and still running so consistently fast, and out of a couple hundred runners ended up
twelfth place overall. First place for his age group, 26 minute five mile run.
Hot damn.
