Art’s Uncle Mike, a very accomplished runner and marathoner, wrote a nice summary of Art’s big race day:

Arthur James Garvin ran his first ever race on Saturday, placing
somewhere in the middle of the pack of heat 2 of the Twin Cities
Marathon Family Day 50 Meter Toddler Trot in the 24 to 35 month age
group. He had so much fun when Emily saw him yesterday (a day after
the race) he run around his backyard showing her how fast he is.
Other highlights of Arthur’s big day:

He really enjoyed the mascot race that was also part of family day.
They had photo ops for the kids (and grown-ups) before the “race” and
Arthur would go up to each mascot and shake its hand as if he was in a
business setting.

As the mascots ran past us during the mascot race he said “Go animals
go!!” not recognizing of course that the HealthPartners pee cup mascot
is not an animal.

He wore his medal (it’s actually made out of foam rubber) from the
toddler trot all weekend. Jessica took it off Saturday night as a
safety precaution but when she came into his bedroom Sunday morning he
was wearing it, so he it put it back on in the middle of the night.

Here’s the Parker/Garvin/Nowraki runners from the TC 5k. Look, there I am! Mike ran really well. There were only about 9 or 10 people ahead of him and he might have won for his age group. Em did real well, too and so did my aunt Deb! Ben missed me while I ran past the finish line because he didn’t know what I was wearing, but Art knew and I heard him say, “Go Mama!” while I ran past. It was a big crowd – walls of people. He had good eyes!!!

From race day

– jess

Hello! Today Art ran a 50m “toddler trot”, all part of the Twin Cities Marathon Family Fun Day. There was also a Mascot race, including Petey Pee Cup (representing for Health Partners clinics and insurance) and Harry and Shelly (Tortoise and Hare mascots for the TC Marathon). Art shook hands with every mascot he met and even kissed one. It was a monkey. He got a T-Shirt and a really cool rubber medal for participating, and his own number! How cool is that!

Is it morbid to play at the cemetery? Disrespectful? I can’t imagine folks would object to Arthur laughing and playing above them. But Jessica thinks it’s not a good idea so perhaps we’ll have to play elsewhere… We did find a stone with Arthur’s name on it, though.

From Follow Art and Lewis Here