Girls On The Run 5k with Mindy

Today was Mindy's 5k with Girls On The Run. I got to be her "Buddy!"

We were the "Cougar Girls"!

The route was 2 times around Sugarhouse Park. We started off really well, but after a few minutes she had to stop and walk with a really bad side ache. I tried to have her breath and relax, but that dang side ache just wouldn't go away. We walked most of the first lap, and she was having a really hard time. She was almost to the point of crying a couple times, and sat down a couple times. She just kept focusing on how tired she was and how much the side ache hurt. I tried to just relax and not worry about how much we were walking.

Here's just a glimpse of some of the girls running with us. It was quite a big event, and fun to see so many girls out running all in matching shirts!

I would be able to get her to run just small sections, but she would always quickly stop and walk again, and this continued on until about half way through the first lap. I told her that I couldn't change her attitude, she was the only one who could do that. We went by a bathroom and I made a quick stop in there. When I came out, I asked her where she wanted to run to and she said, "That big tree that goes to the ground."

We had passed a big tree with branches hanging to the ground, but with space underneith that she wanted to go under on the first lap, but we didn't sttop. That was kind of a long ways away so iit suprised me that she gave herself that big of a goal, but I was excited that she was actually excited about something! She said she wanted to go under it when we got to it, and I said ok! She took off running, and she made it to the tree! That was awesome. She went insdie for a few minutes and was just so happy. When she came out, I said, "Ok, now we're going to run to the water station then we can stop and get a drink, then we'll run to the finish." And she was suddenly ok with running. Yay! So that's what we did. It was hard to keep her going all the way to the end, but she kept running, and we got to run under the finsih arch and she got her medal!

 Doing their cheer: "Go Cougar Girls! Rawr!" after the race.

The proud finisher with her very first medal!

On the way out, we had to stop and get our pictures taken as flowers. :)

I asked her if she was glad she did it, and she said yes! Whew! :) It was really hard for her, and I'm very proud of her for changing her attitude and finishing strong!