Mack, who’ll be eight in a few weeks, ran in the Regional Junior Olympics cross country meet Saturday morning against kids his age (born in 2000 or later) from Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Mack had been home from school two days during the week, sick with the flu, and unable to work out. The temperature was in the 30s.
He struggled during the race and ran about 25 seconds slower than last week in the state championships (where he came in third). Both times I saw him on the course he just didn’t look like himself. He just seemed tired and as if he couldn’t pick his feet up like normal. Usually I love to watch him run. But today I actually felt like hopping the rope and pulling him off the course. He did have a pretty good finish where he was seesawing with another boy on the way in and he beat him to the line.
Later I was looking at the race photos with Mack and showing him how he just didn’t look like he was having fun except when he was battling that kid at the end. Turns out that, as that kid passed him earlier in the race, the kid said, “See ya!” as he went by.
Big mistake.
Mack came after the kid, passed eight other runners while looking for him, found him and beat him by a quarter of a second. That’s. My. Boy.