Finisher in his first race!
Running for tots
It is really cute to watch kids run a race. New York Road Runners has a Rising New York Road Runners program that helps get kids out and active. At the end of popular races, they also have kids compete in age bracket-specific competitions. (Think of the two-year-olds trying to run 50m and try not to smile!) They even get their very own very funny sports commentator rattling off race highlights.
I’m biased, yes, but aren’t these cute:
One More Mile and the Cookie’s History!
Establishing healthy habits in kids is no easy task. But it’s more important than ever, considering the gamut of health problems caused by inactivity – from poor mental and emotional resilience to disabling and fatal diseases.
Like other families, we’re constantly challenged to stay active. How do we encourage kids to make a habit of integrating movement into daily life, a basic skill that affects so many aspects of mental, emotional and physical well-being? It’s an exercise in creativity to make physical activity routine, while at the same time creating memories and strengthening our relationship with them.
And how do you make that habit stick?
While we love organized sports, it’s a significant commitment. The kids are age-segregated so won’t be in the same camp time/day. This increases the time, effort and expense of shuttling them to practices/games that are on fixed schedules. Did I mention the costs? There are so many points in this chain where our motivation can break no matter how we prioritize it.
For economy of effort, we focused on making the little things count. And we looked at running as a cost-effective and convenient activity (doable anywhere and anytime) that draws several goals together for us as a family.
Here’s our ongoing journey, from the daily efforts to running in NYC’s Bronx Zoo Run for the Wild 5K to developing a homeschool curriculum around the lessons we learn along the way.
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Even with a compelling wealth of evidence, more of our own efforts at modeling healthy habits fail than not. So it’s even tougher to help our kids understand the system that impacts their choices and the long game that is their mental, emotional and physical health and well-being. This makes every effort count because the human mind and body are capable of amazing things when it’s in the best condition it can be. The healthiest life attainable is our goal.
Read the entire article at Multicultural Kid Blogs, written for National Physical Fitness and Sports Month.
KidLit Review: When the Clock Strikes on Halloween
I was eight when I experienced Halloween for the first time. It was our first year in the US, and my Aunt took me trick-or-treating with my cousins. Remember those costumes in a box, plastic mask on top of the neatly folded outfit underneath? I was Supergirl. When that first door opened and candy dropped into my orange pumpkin basket, the entire scope of my being focused completely on the singular goal of getting and devouring more sugar.
As a mom, the thing of wonder Halloween became for me that day is something I enjoy sharing with my kids. Lisa Ferland’s bedtime picture book, When the Clock Strikes on Halloween, brings back those memories.
It is Halloween. Mummies and goblins and witches all know it’s a big day, and we follow them through their tricks and their treats, as a big clock counts down the hours. What is the goblin doing at three? Where are the witches going at six? Who are all these creatures?
It is beautifully illustrated by Pei Jen, with lots of fun and cute details to engage the young reader’s curiosity.
Adding in the time element is useful. With the countdown, children are introduced to the concept of telling time (by analog) and what happens sequentially through the day, e.g., the sun goes down and it gets dark in the evening.
What I love are the questions at the end for open-ended discussions, to nurture comprehension and critical thinking. It’s never too early to help kids make sense of incoming information!
For disclosure, I received a book from Lisa to review. But it made our night time rotation with my daughter asking her older brother to read it to her. And it got the kids thinking forward to Halloween. They had to mark it on our wall calendar and counted the months left (six! how time flies!). Now they’re also talking about what they want to be, because they help make their costume every year!
All in all, this picture book is great for kids up to eight years old. And I’m looking forward to more books from Lisa and Pei!
Check out this book and all of Lisa’s other books on Kickstarter!
The bane and beauty of running
It’s said that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. I’ve followed my dad’s footsteps in this one, and for running it certainly holds true.
I run. I run for that “me” time. I run for that clear-headed exhaustion at the end. I run for the physical and health benefits. And I run to eat cookies.
This winter I was out the door pre-dawn at least five days a week. I love when the city is mostly asleep and the darkness makes it picturesque. It’s just me, the fruit stand and coffee cart vendors, bus drivers and deliverymen. From mild mornings to the cold rains and driving sleet, these tranquil moments belong to few. I love running in below zero temps before sunrise; it is so reviving when that polar chill cuts through my base layers while I’m sweating it out.
It’s 20 blocks to the mile in NYC. I step out the front door and run that same route day after day, preferring the obstacle course of the concrete track to the monotonous pace of Central Park or Riverside trails.
I can sustain a running routine for years at a time and can’t recall the reasons for stopping, but my running is a good metric for the difficulty setting my life is at at the moment.
It’s usually stress that pulls me back. And so it was 15 months ago that got me pounding the pavement again. I’d push through that familiar bane of running – shin pain – and once the pain goes away after about a mile and a half I’d enter The Zone.
It took a year to build a solid running base back up. Every morning the excuses run like a ticker across my groggy consciousness, especially when the sun isn’t up yet. But I will somehow spartan up and hit the pavement, and actually look forward to that punishment. It takes discipline to power through it – sucking wind, burning muscles, hitting the wall and grappling for the last oomph of energy your head and body disagree over. But you get more out of it than what you put in, and when you start crushing the miles you feel like you’re on top of the world.
Running made me aware how self-destructive I got those first three years back here in New York, isolating myself from things I used to do and love, and relying more and more on harmful habits.
But my old self is waking up, and running put me back in touch with that person. I took up meditation and started writing again, both of which complement running well. I also picked up more books, reconnected with friends near and far, and made more effort at meeting new people.
Other upsides to my morning runs?
- It’s physically transformative. My knees are stronger than ever (22 years after ACL reconstruction), muscle and joint aches are gone, posture and core strength are better than in my twenties, and I’m back to my college weight.
- Being a lifestyle choice, running is a catalyst for major life shifts. You can’t sustain the habit without building up the values and character traits needed to actuate changes.
- It’s meditative. I focus on and control my breathing, and the blocks just fly. Do you know how much power you draw from the simple act of focusing on your breath?
- Mental health and stress levels are back to form, and I’m back to being the eternal optimist, adventure seeker, and avid risk taker my family knows me to be. I’m also back into concocting stories my kids love.
- It’s the first winter since being back in the US that I didn’t get sick once.
- Higher resistance to the cold. While others at work blast space heaters, I’m stripping down to shirt or tank top.
- Allergies normally seize up my respiratory system around this hay fever season, but symptoms were mild last Spring and so far this year things look good (knock on wood!).
- I can eat more cookies (the truth comes out)!
I’m in a much better place now, with similarly improved running form and technique. Running has taught me a lot of things about myself, about endurance, and discipline. And I credit the running with helping me cut toxic jobs, people and habits fairly decisively. I love that my biggest competition is me, that it’s low-tech and cheap, and that I can be as anti-social or social as I want with the sport. If I can conquer running I can handle anything life throws at me.
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#Scene on the running route #JoggingNYC
