That slightly gauche young man is my son.  He’s 17, and just doing his A/S levels (or whatever they’re called this year).  Very occasionally, he comes for a run with me and once in a while he’ll come home from his Dad’s saying he’s run there.

This morning, despite an entrenched antipathy to early rising and a late-night Eurovision cheesefest last night, he pulled on a silly T-shirt and came with me and Mr P to University Parks in Oxford, to run the Town & Gown 10k.

We were part of the St Hugh’s College team; an 80-strong commando force of mixed abilities who set out to earn their College brunch, today.  My son works there on a casual basis, sometimes, and so he knew some of the team.  We got to work early, and handed out team T-shirts to people, before Mr P lined us up expertly on the front steps, for a team photo.  And then we headed down to the park, and tried to stay in the warmth of the sunshine while we waited for the starter’s count-down.

My lovely boy, the reluctant runner, shot off – ignoring my advice to pace himself – in the company of some of the more competitive young men from his work team.  He’d done very little training, and I have to admit I did rather expect to find him faltering later on.

I set off at my standard steady plod – a little slower than of late, but felt comfortable and happy over distance for the first time since last month’s marathon.  I finished in 1 hour 10 minutes, to find that my amazing boy had shot through the finish line in 59 minutes and 6 seconds!!

He’s claiming indifference, but I notice that he’s wearing his finisher’s T-shirt with his pyjama bottoms, this evening…

59:06 with no training!!! I think that’s an amazing time!! I’m proud as punch of him!!

And to set the seal on the weekend, my lovely sister did a Moonwalk last night, too!

What a fabulous family weekend 🙂