Like father, like daughter
[This running story is from local father-daughter team John and Kailey Haddock, and their first time running the Father’s Day Waterloo 10 KM Classic!]
Kailey and John post-race.
As long as I can remember, dad was a runner. He ran during lunch hours, before work, after work, during my swim meets, soccer tournaments – the list goes on. Dad always had his water bottle and running shoes close by. Me, I NEVER liked running, I found it boring! For an outgoing, hard to sit still kind of girl, I loved doing things with other people in my youth and teen years – I was a soccer player and a swimmer; I loved the social aspect of my sports and running was a turn off to me.
Dad tried his best to get me into running, he even made me join the cross country team when I was in Grade 9 – for some reason I was shocked when me and my 4 foot 9 inch stature got cut from the girls basketball team!!
It wasn’t until recently that I avidly picked up running. When I hung up the swim suit and retired the soccer cleats, I started running casually, but the thought of racing still didn’t attract me. I always admired my dad’s accomplishments of running multiple marathons and road races – he even got my two older brothers on board with the marathons and distance runner, but not me.
I finally gave in when a close friend of mine challenged me to half marathon stating “you’d be good at it!” For some reason I agreed to it (I’m sure it has to do with the fact that I’m only slightly competitive:)), it took all of 3 days for my dad to sign up so that he could run my very first road race with me – he was thrilled! He has always called himself my biggest cheerleader and he was with me every step of the way that race – when I was ready to give up he pushed me to keep going and help me achieve my goal time of 1 hour and 51 minutes for my first half marathon.
Since that race back in October of 2011 I have been hooked. I have consistently pushed myself to try different races (5k’s, 10k’s, more half marathons etc). My dad and I keep each other posted on our long runs and upcoming races – I still can’t believe my almost 60 year old father is still out pounding the pavement, I only hope I can grow up to be like him. He has fueled and encouraged my passion for running and kept me on par with my training and has supported me in any way possible, from going running shoe shopping, to allowing me to borrow his super fancy Garmin running watch in my most recent half marathon.
I decided that the perfect way to say thanks to my dad for all his support would be to run the Waterloo Classic with him for Father’s Day, a race that is brand new to both of us. It was super neat to know my dad and I were running this “together,” even though we weren’t running side by side, we were cheering each other along the whole way. His cheer of “GO KAILEY GO!” when we ran past each other at the 8km mark was just the push I needed to get me to the end. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend Father’s Day than with my dad, doing the past time we both love.
