As you probably are aware, my kids both participate in tae kwon do. This has, in so many ways, been a positive experience for them and for us. One of the best things about the couple that teaches our kids is that they are just as focused on life skills and self-improvement as they are on tae kwon do. To them, learning tae kwon do is important, but learning to be a good person is even more so.
I think that I blogged about the kids getting their black pants a couple of months ago, after finishing three “extra credit” sheets, which were 20 days each of working on a skill or behavior. Attaining black-pant status means becoming an assistant leader, which means that Master and Mrs. Kurtz can call of them to perform a variety of leadership tasks.
The next uniform step is working toward a black top or full leadership status. The students are supposed to have their purple belts and be around 10 before being allowed to work on this. Well, Charlotte is nothing if not motivated by awards, so, almost immediately after getting her black pants, she asked Mrs. Kurtz when she could begin working on her full leadership project. Mrs. told her to come back and ask when Charlotte earned her blue belt.
Well, no sooner did she get her blue belt than she inquired again. Even though Charlotte was still one level below purple belt, Mrs. Kurtz told me that she believed Charlotte was ready. (Elijah, on the other hand, was not. It was a tough call to let Charlotte go ahead of him, but she IS two years older and a lot more focused. We think that Elijah might be ready by the end of summer.)
A leadership project is not so much working on leadership, per se, but more about goal-setting, diligence, and self-improvement. The students set an approved, measurable goal and spend 100 days working toward it. As very few people can work 100 straight days toward anything, this project usually takes four to five months.
Charlotte decided that she wanted to work on running as her project. She set the goal of training for and running at least two, possibly three, 5K races. Around this same time, Mike Fiedler, my running partner before I got pregnant, decided to start up a kids’ running group that included his own son, with the idea of training for a 5K race in early June.
Charlotte was off to (training for) the races!
So, I finally arrive at the point of this particular story…
Yesterday, Caterpillar had their annual CAT Power Run, which featured a 5K race, a one-mile fun run, and a 1/2 mile kids’ run for employees and their dependents in downtown Peoria. Jeff and Charlotte signed up for the one-miler. Mike and Andrew Fiedler also signed up.
At 8:30, the foursome took off.
Elijah, Jeremy, and I moved over to the finish line. About seven or eight minutes in, the first finisher, a teenage girl, crossed the finish line, followed by a few men and boys. Then, here came our girl, with her dad struggling valiantly to keep up!
Before long the race was finished, and we were preparing to walk back to the parking lot. I asked Jeff if there were any prizes for the one-mile run, and he told me that he thought the top male and female finishers got a prize.
The first person to finish the race was female, but I had heard her say at the finish line that she had already run the 5K and that she had just done the one-mile for fun. (She ended up winning her age division in the 5K.) As participants were only allowed to compete in one race, I tried to remember if any other girls had finished before Charlotte…and I couldn’t remember any.
So, we decided to stick around for the awards presentation. Sure enough, Charlotte was first female finisher! Here she is, accepting her award and showing it off.
I’m not sure who was more surprised, us or Charlotte! This was her very first competitive run, and she won! Needless to say, we are very proud of her. For her prize, she gets to pick between two tickets to a Peoria Chiefs baseball game and two movie passes. She wants to go to a baseball game with her dad sometime around her birthday.
Sounds like a good plan to me!
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