I don't usually blog my weekends with Zoe because they're not something unique
to this year, but today was such a good day that I felt like it.
I'd entered us in the Rotary Club Fun Run
at Saint Lucia, which was on this morning. They had a 1km run for the kids
and I went in the 10km run, pushing Zoe in the jogging stroller.
I'm always a bit apprehensive of how these things that require an abnormally
early start are going to go. I never know if Zoe is going to wake up "cleanly"
or if she's going to have a meltdown and cause delays making the whole thing
pointless. This morning's start wasn't crazy early like the Bridge to Brisbane,
so it went pretty well. I got up at 6am and got ready (I mostly had everything
done the night before) and started progressively trying to cause Zoe to wake up
naturally.
She woke up well, and we were out the door only about 10 minutes later than I'd
have liked. We had a pretty wide margin to get to Saint Lucia to pick up our
race numbers anyway, and so it wasn't really a problem. We found a pretty good
park close by the UQ athletics track, and headed over to registration to pick
up our numbers.
I was doing some warm ups with Zoe and we nearly missed the start of the kid's
1km race. As it was Zoe started right at the back of the pack. She didn't run
the entire 1km but she ran most of it, and came
in third last, with a time of pretty much smack on 10 minutes. She had a
good time, and that was the main thing. It was nice to start the run out on the
running track, and the crowd was very supportive. I ran alongside her.
It ended up being a beautiful morning this morning. Clear and warm. We couldn't
have asked for a better day, really.
Next up, was the 10km race. Zoe was really good, and only complained a bit
around the 8km mark. She was easily placated with one of the snacks from the
enormous bag I'd prepared the night before. I'd totally over-catered for it,
planning to need to bribe her once a kilometre, but she was happy just watching
everyone.
The course was nice and flat, and I finished in just under an hour, which I was
happy with. We hung around for a little bit. They had a free jumping castle and
face painting. The fun run was primarily in support of The Wesley Hospital Kim Walters
Choices charity, and so I bought one of the ridiculous pink wigs that
everyone was running in (for Zoe's dress up collection) and she got given a
free t-shirt and a few balloons, so it was a pretty good morning.
Also on this morning was the first Queensland Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Circuit state championship that Zoe's BJJ teacher was competing in that
didn't involve driving half way to the Gold Coast. In fact, it was only about
12 minutes away from the fun run location, so we headed over to the Lang Park PCYC so Zoe could see what
"real" Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was all about.
Zoe's super fond of her BJJ teacher, Patrick, and was very excited to see him
again. I think we got there around 10:30am, and he wasn't due to compete until
11:40am, but they were running late. Zoe was pretty patient waiting for his
fight to come around, and seemed pretty happy watching a lot of other random
fights. I was particularly glad that she got to see some women competing as
well, so she could see that it wasn't just all men.
After Patrick's first fight, which he won, we walked to the nearby McDonald's
for lunch. The plan had been to go home after that, but Zoe wanted to see
Patrick again, so we went back in to see what he was up to. Unfortunately, his
next fight had ended up being about 10 minutes after his first, and he won that
one too, but lost the third one, so we missed seeing him compete again. We did
get to see some junior fights, so that was good, and I was glad we came back so
that Zoe could see that not only did men and women do this, so did kids.
It was a pretty good day really, and it gave me more of an education on what
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu looked like at a competitive level. I was able to point out
some of the moves that Zoe had learned in her classes as they were being used
on the mats.
Zoe was pretty tired by the time we headed home, and nearly fell asleep in the
car on the way home. I let her chill out in front of the TV for the rest of the
afternoon, and managed to get her to bed almost a full hour early, which was
rather exciting.
