One Proud Mummy

Regular readers of my blog will know that last year Alfie took part in his first race being held during the Bournemouth Marathon Festival.

For his age he was allowed to enter the 1.5k race; the course of which took him along Bournemouth seafront, up and down Bournemouth Pier with the finishing line just before the iconic seafront bridge.

Last year Alfie did the course in 8m 18s. But for some reason Alfie wasn`t as confident as last year and kept saying that he didn`t want to do it as he thought he wouldn`t be able to beat last years time. We explained to him over and over again that the timing didn`t matter one bit; as long as he was having fun that`s all that mattered. Plus with being a year old, having longer legs and more stamina we were sure he`d beat last years time.

Saturday afternoon we made our way down to Bournemouth seafront to find it heaving!!!! This was the events 3rd year and was visibly a lot more popular than last years festival.

Hubby made his way to the start line with Alfie whilst I made a bee-line straight for the finishing line as last year we learned that if you wanted a good view point you would have to get there about 20-30 mins before the race started.

I was stood ready with Jacob and Ben waiting for Alfie to come over the finishing line when all of a sudden 2 out of Alfie`s 3 sets of grandparents appeared out of the crowds to cheer him on!!

We assumed the race had started by the fact that the timer was running above the finishing line, I say assumed as the start line was well out of eye and ear shot so couldn`t hear the starting gun go off.

Due to Alfie`s time last year of 8m 18s I had told myself to get my camera ready about 6 minutes into the race as no-one would of come over the line by then....how wrong was I?? At 5m 30s a young boy came zooming past me to finish in the courses fastest time ever!!

At 6m 50s I heard my mum screaming "he`s coming!!", and sure enough Alfie was sprinting towards the finishing line!! I barely had time to get my camera ready and managed to take 2 not so great pictures of him whizzing past me.

My amazing son had shaved off 1m 19s off of last years time coming in at 6m 59s!!! I was so proud of him I instantly welled up with tears as I knew he`d of done his best to finish so quickly.

When I collected him from the holding pens he had the biggest smile on his face; he didn`t know his official time but he knew he`d done well. When I told him he was so happy it made my heart melt. We collected his amazing finishers medal and goody pack which included a finisher t-shirt which he instantly put on...as you can tell from the photo below he was so proud to be showing off his medal.

I am so proud of you Alfie for completing the race and beating last years time. You will do even better next year in the next age group up and longer race of 2k xxx