The Exhausted Dad: A 7-year-old’s play-by-play about running

Three of my kids are participating in cross country this year.

Only one of them will tell you everything about it.

I already wrote about my 9-year-old daughter’s general disdain for cross country, an activity she chose to do and willingly continues to do despite that disdain.

My youngest son, meanwhile, loves cross country. For many reasons. He tells me all about it, all the time. Once he’s finally ready to retire as an athlete, he may have a career in sports broadcasting. I hate running, but even I find his stories about running to be extremely compelling.

I watched his cross country meet, but because the course is so spread out, I only saw him cross the finish line. So many things happened before then.

Highlights of my son’s retelling:

“On the bus ride, I sat with a kid with my exact same name! So it was a full seat of me on the bus. Or us. Everybody on the bus said it was our seat, and that’s hilarious because it was.”

“Dad, Dad, Dad … at the beginning, when I was running, and I was running really fast, and I knew I was going to run as fast as I could run.”

“Oh, and Dad, there was a boy that pushed into me, and I tripped and fell to the ground. I got back up, and I kept running because I didn’t want to lose time. He pushed into me but not on purpose because some other boy tripped and he fell into him and then he pushed into me, and I scratched my leg but it was OK and I shook it off and kept going. FAST.”

“Dad, I ran the WHOLE ENTIRE time. I jogged but it was fast jogging.”

“I ran the whole time except for like … 20 seconds when I walked, but it was only 20 seconds, or actually, maybe it was like 15 seconds, but I was running really fast!”

“Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad … I ran a whole entire mile. Well, I walked for 20 seconds and I tripped but even with that it was a whole entire mile!”

“When I made it the finish line, I was so tired! Because I was running so fast. And I’m pretty sure I got like … 50th place. That’s really good.”

“I went so fast that I got probably … 60th place. It was really fast!”

“My friend beat me at the finish line, but right after the finish line I passed him and so I beat him because I kept going.”

After he finished the race, my son went with the rest of his age bracket to sit in the bleachers and wait for the rest of the event to complete. I spotted him from my location and watched him chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat with three other kids from his class. He was pointing at things on the course and using hand gestures to illustrate the falling incident.

As I was tucking him into bed later that evening, he added some initial analysis/color commentary.

“My other friend is the fastest in the whole grade. He was probably first or second or third and he ran the mile faster than all the third graders too.”

“Dad, I LOVE running. It makes me feel good and super energized.”

“I’m going to run even faster at the next meet and definitely get 50th place.”

“Dad, did I tell you about the bus ride and the kid with my name?”

He told it all to me again. More or less.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, age 7-13. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.