Last time we ran together in a family event was at the Turkey Trot 4-miler last year in San Diego. So when my 13yo asked to run his first 10K, we quickly (and might I add, eagerly) started looking around for a local run and settled in on the AACI Run For Wellness 10K. It was the day after school was over and that did mean losing sleep, getting up early to kick off summer.

AACI Run For Wellness

Given that this was my 13yo’s first 10K, we had a couple of training runs in the month leading up to the 10K, mostly around 3 to 4 miles. We tried 4-1, 4 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking, though that’s not exactly how the 10K panned out. Got to the Microsoft Campus early and groggy, checked in and got our bibs. My wife was walking the 5K and my 11yo was going to run the fun miler, so we all were pretty excited. All 48 of our us toed the starting line for the 10K and took off at 8:00am. We looped around the parking lot and then head up on Stevens Creek Trail towards Shoreline Lake. Kept a relaxed, conversational pace as the cool morning breeze whipped over us. My son kept ignoring the run/walk alerts on my Garmin as we found ourselves squarely in the mid-pack.

Past the first aid station, watching a flock of sparrows and pelicans in the distant bay. Past the golf course towards the lake and took a short walking break when the walk alert came on. We ran behind Michael’s restaurant and saw the Flare station. That explains the fireworks behind the Amphitheater for July 4th concerts! Soon we found ourselves at the Shoreline Park entrance as we ran past the dog park and back to the home stretch.

4 miles in around 34 minutes. I was telling him that even if we jogged slowly now, he was going to do a sub-1-hour 10K. But nope. He picked up the pace, ran past my wife who had started on the 5K walk and sprinted towards the finish line. He beat me by a second to finish his first 10K in 48:38! My 11yo later ran his first fun miler in 6:10 and picked up a bag of goodies for placing first in the kids run. Pretty fun day out to support AACI Run for Wellness and looks like I now need to find the next 10K for my 13yo and my 11yo is apparently ready for his first 5K. Off to bed early tonight so I can run the Big Basin 50K tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward to this run all year long.

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