Today, Julienne had to go to work (report cards) so the kids and I
went to a local 5km road race. Since I was pushing the double
stroller, I started in last place (48th place, in this race.) Soon,
we got on the road and I got into my cruise speed and began passing
people. Skylar was enjoying going "zooming" but Sylvia was less
excited. "I'm tired" she said, and promptly put her head down to
sleep.

There is a large hill in the middle of the race. We lost a little
ground to the #5 guy on the way up but at the turn, we quickly passed
him. For the downhill, Skylar played an important role. I had
attached a braking mechanism (boards rubbing on the tires) to the
stroller and once we started going fast, I called "brakes!" He pulled
so hard that I called "less brakes!" and we went down the hill, fast
but controlled. At the bottom, we passed the 4th place runner and
settled into a fast cruise speed.

As we closed in on the finish line, I noticed that we were getting
closer and closer to #2 and #3, who were running close together. We
rounded the school, shot across a dirt path, and were on the running
track behind the school where the finish line was. As we went into
the final turn, we passed the #2 and #3 runners. The woman called out, "I love it when the people with a jogger do well!" Just in case, we put in our final
sprint, not sure if they would fight back and turn on a kick I couldn't match
pushing 100lbs of kids and stroller. Still, I gave it all I had and
crossed the finish line 2 seconds ahead of them.

While it was my slowest 5km race either on trails or off since I was a
freshman in high school, we still got second place. On the way there,
Skylar had said, "Will we win?" "No," I had said,. "Are you SURE we
won't win?" I was sure we wouldn't even be in the top 10. So, as one
bystander had said, "that's quite the handicap you got there." I
guess he was right.