Baby's First E-mail Address and First First Place

Way back in November (aka, the last time I had time to write a blog post) Chad turned 5 and got his very own FitBit. He'd been wanting one for a long time. We'd given him an old pedometer ("It's a Fitbit, really, it just specializes in steps!") which was fine until it went through the wash and the screen got all shadowy.

But, as you FitBit-ers out there know, to really track your steps over time you need an account, which, like everything else, requires an e-mail and a password. So Chad now has his very own e-mail address to collect spam in. We had to lie about his age for both the e-mail and the FitBit, and gave him the smallest height/weight FitBit would allow, which is still a little bigger than him.
We don't let him wear the FitBit to school because he would probably lose it, but on the weekends he more than makes up for his lack of stepping during the week. His little legs do a lot of stepping to keep up with us!
And since FitBits encourage physical activity, it was perfect timing because Chad's very first kids Fun Run happened on Thanksgiving! He trained with me by running up and down MLK. TO encourage him, we let him wear Andy's old ForeRunner, and I would give him Gatorade afterwards to replenish all those electrolytes. :)

Back in my old high school, which looks nothing like I remember.

The three of us ran a Turkey Trot in Poughkeepsie! They have four races of different distances. Andy and I took off for the 25K, and PopPop cheered on Chad in the one miler.

See the colorful plastic pieces behind him? That was the "participation prize" for the Fun Run. They are little puzzles that we haven't attempted yet. Andy and I got long sleeve technical shirts, in a nice mustard yellow color, which is perfect for increasing my visibility when I go running in the dark. (You didn't read that, Mom.)

The Green Flash, immediately post-race. I called him the Green Flash again the other day, and he said, "I like my other name better. I like Chad." OK, we'll have to find a different sports name for him.

After we finished our race, Andy and I were hanging out in the lobby eating the free salsa (because everyone eats salsa at 11:30 on Thanksgiving morning!) and looking for the kids' results. The two and 5 mile races used chips, so their results were already printed out and hanging up, but the kids run and 25K were tracked the old fashioned way. We saw the trophy table and a few leftover trophies from the shorter races. The second and third place Boys Under 5 trophies were still sitting there, so we thought that maybe Chad was the ONLY 5 and under boy and had gotten first place by default. 

Sure enough, when Chad came along to pick us up, he was holding a shiny trophy. BUT, it was NOT a default win, and there were actually 10 boys in his age group, and he beat them all! (One of them was only 2, so that doesn't really seem like a fair competition.) I guess the second and third place boys just didn't hang around until the awards ceremony.

From the MHRCC website, here are the awards for his age group:

Male 5 and under 

1-Chad Ashcroft (Durham, MC, 5) 10:15; 

2-Leo D'Angelone (Centereach, 4) 10:22; 

3-Hunter Mendez (Chappaqua, 4) 12:54; 

Yes, they spelled all of our names wrong, and they made up the state of Morth Carolina. But we like to be enigmatic anyway.

Go Green Flash