Vancouver Sun Run

[photopress:tri.jpg,thumb,alignleft]I have been running now for over 20 years and love it. In the past I have led Sun Run training groups and have shared so many tears of joy with Sun Run participants who achieve goals that they never thought possible. My greatest “Sun Run” joy was training my 12 year old daughter to run the Sun Run in 2005. After the initial excitement of signing up, she experienced days of frustration and disappointments even to the point of giving up the training and not wanting to participate. However, she made it to the starting gate, got caught up in all the mass excitement and ran the whole Sun Run in just over an hour. I have never seen her so proud of her abilities as when she ran through that finish line and we shared our greatest tears of joy. She has already entered for Sun Run 2006 - with confidence!

Is your child a runner?  If so, I would like to share a few tips that I feel are important if you are going to train with your child.
1.  Make sure your child has appropriate running shoes.
2.  Let your child drive the running program - not you.  It is important that they have fun!
3.  Children need to drink water every 10-15 minutes when exercising.  Either run on routes that have plenty of opportunities for water.  My daughter likes to run with her camelback.  It also makes a great diversion from the actual run, when she has something else to fool around with.
4.  Watch the temperature - your child is more susceptible to extreme temperatures then you are.