A China 5K

Ryan has running in him. He ran cross country on his school's team growing up, but I never got to see him in a race. Until yesterday. :)

When I run, I hurt. When he runs, he gets an inordinate amount of happy endorphins that makes him love it.  Not that he doesn't hurt (he's sore today) but running just seems a part of his make up. Which is really cool. So, despite the fact that he hadn't run but a handful of times in the last month, he up and ran a 5k yesterday, and ran it super well!

 There was a huge 5k organized for companies to have employees run in. Ryan's work had 30 people representing them, and there was around 6,000 total people in the race!

 The race map

 It was a beautiful day for a run in the West Bund area near downtown Shanghai. Blue sky, cool and breezy but not too cold. Hadassah and I enjoyed walking along the river while we waited for things to start.

 The race started at 4:30 PM, and the sun was already starting to set! There isn't any time change here in China, so there will be a lot of dark late afternoons this winter!

 The little miss showed off her new walking skills...

 She was so proud of herself :)

 She's walking so steady now. Yesterday she just took off and has been walking everywhere. Including out of her room and around the corner to find me after finishing playing with some toys in there. So life is a little more dangerous now ;)

 But also full of such fun and sweetness!

 The race began! So many people went by, but I saw Ryan not too long after it started, trying to get around all the people in the way! 

(see if you can find him in the picture - it's hard!)

 The light was too pretty to not try and get a picture of her after we "all fell down" in ring-around-the-rosy

 There he is on the way back!

 There was some fun music playing, so Hadassah and I had a little dance and cheer going:
"Where's your daddy?
Let's go Daddy!
There's your Daddy!
Go go go go!" :)

 I liked the slogan for his company on the back of their shirts:
 "Elevating the Future of Flight"

We then went as close to the finish line as we could to see Ryan cross, and we were jamming out to the beat while we waited :) 

 He's running strong! I loved being able to see him do something he so enjoys!

 The finish line. Ryan clocked in at a time of 24:23 for a route that was a little over 5k in distance. He placed #76, which out of 6,000 people is pretty good, I'd say!

Together after the race. So happy to have experienced this with him! 

We also found a delicious, fairly priced Italian restaurant along the river afterwards. Italian has to be my favorite kind of restaurant and this one didn't let us down! Yum. :)