I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my son, Paxton, will be turning 13 this weekend.
A teenager!
Instead of playing with trucks and dinosaurs, he now prefers to blast through his foes on a VR headset. The cute, mispronounced words — like “Dobby” for our old pet dog — are gone forever and replaced with verbalizations like “bruh” and “sigma,” “rizz” and other words an “unc” like me could never understand.
It’s only a matter of time before I get cast aside for Pax’s friends, or even worse, a girlfriend.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, but I know time is inevitable, so I’ve been spending the time I still have hanging with my kid and trying to do everything that a 12-year-old boy loves to do.
Video games? Board games? Check. Check.
Wrestling? Drawing contests? You bet.
Fart jokes? Maybe just a few.
But the part I enjoy the most: Joining Pax the Max for a ride around town. It happens on an almost-daily basis, now. With him on scooter and myself on bike, we started out small with two-mile rides here and there.
But last weekend, we kept looking for new paths to discover and fresh hills to climb and coast down, pretty much anything to keep the ride going.
It was a delight, an experience I wish I could bottle up and save for a rainy day decades from now.
We covered a lot of ground on our ride and flew down the hills at the fairground. After each hill, Pax presented the numbers from his speedometer. He concluded that if he was going 35 mph downhill, I “must have been going 42.”
But more important than data interpretation, we had real conversation. I wasn’t bombarded by slang terms or given the same two-word answers I often receive when Pax comes home from school each day. Instead we had meaningful communication, questions about the world, and recollections of childhood memories.
“Dad, are you tired or something?”
It’s a question he asked as I disembarked from my bike to push it uphill. And that’s when it hit me: He was the one pushing me along, instead of the other way around, the way it had been for the majority of his life.
It’s been more and more noticeable with each passing day, but in this moment it was clearer than ever: Pax is no longer a little boy. Heck, he’s almost as tall as me, now.
It may take a few more months (or years) to get over this bittersweet feeling, but as I do I want to make double sure to enjoy the current Paxton I have before he, too, grows up.
Maybe by then, he’ll still want to go on bike rides with his dad.
Happy birthday, Pax the Max! Can I still call you that?
1 STEP BACK, 3 STEPS FORWARD
There were 96 runners that turned out for the Tartan 5K in Hagerstown. None were faster than Zachary Schreiber.
He blitzed through the race in 18:58 to finish on top of a group that included fellow Hagerstown runners Rehan Singh (4th in 21:41), Mauricio Vera Walth (8th in 24:40), Heather Luciani (9th in 24:40), and Bradley Reed (10th in 25:11), as well as Greencastle’s Cooper Carbaugh (6th in 23:20).
Another Hagerstown runner, Ethan Downie, put on a smoking performance at the Tim Kennard River Run 10 Miler in Salisbury, Md. Downie clocked a 1:07:23 to finish seventh in the field of 167 runners. Another long-distance race, the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail 50K in Gaithersburg, Md., saw Fairfield’s Kyle Schoen run to a finish in 8:07:16.
Chambersburg’s Sean Collier and Steve Vanscyoc both won their respective races at the Medal Madness 5K/10K in Biglerville. Collier won the 5K in 21:19, while Vanscyoc conquered the 10K in 1:00:36.
Hagerstown runners Dain Ochoa and Anna Deavers crossed state lines to compete in destination races. Ochoa ventured to Newport News, Va., for the One City Marathon, a race he finished in 3:57:49, while Deavers posted a time of 2:02:25 at the War Eagle Half Marathon at Auburn University in Alabama.
A handful of others were active in races across the region and beyond, including Hagerstown’s Alexander Cruz (29:12 at Hot Chocolate 5K), Ronald Suffecool (48:29 at Lucky Leprechaun 5K), and Sarah Gillaspie (57:37 at Ranson Race 5K).
And now, a look ahead:
St. Patrick’s Day Run Fest: Saturday, 8 a.m., in Hagerstown, Md. Race distances of one mile, 5K, and 8K are available for this event. Find the event on runsignup.com.
Chambersburg Half Marathon: Saturday, March 21, 8:30 a.m., in Chambersburg. This hilly race, in its 48th running, honors the life of Robert Eyer Sr. Register for the event on timberhilltiming.com.
Lucky Charm 4 Miler: Saturday, March 21, 12 p.m., in Harrisburg. Every participant in this race receives a finisher’s medal, custom race t-shirt, and a gift certificate to Fleet Feet. Check out the race on runsignup.com.
Also: Big Woods Half Marathon (Saturday, in Elverson); Conshohocken St. Paddy’s Day 5K Classic (Saturday, in Conshohocken); ERC St. Patrick’s Day Distance Festival (Saturday, in Erie); Fire on the Rocks 10K (Saturday, in McElhattan); Medal Madness 5K/10K/13.1M (Saturday, in York); Philly Shamrock Run 5K (Saturday, Philadelphia); Run4Luck 4 Miler (Saturday, in Lancaster); Shamrock Shenanigans Ultra 5H/10H (Saturday, in Douglassville); Shamrock Shuffle 5K (Saturday, in Manheim); Training Grounds Trail Run 5K/10K (Saturday, in Denver); Celtic Canter 5K (Saturday, in Westminster, Md.); Forest of Needwood (Saturday, in Knoxville, Md.); Ocean City St. Patrick’s Day 5K (Saturday, in Ocean City, Md.); Armstrong Valley Wine Run 5K (Sunday, in Halifax); St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock 5K (Sunday, in Baltimore, Md); Annapolis Running Festival (Saturday, March 21, in Annapolis, Md.); Doc Trot 5K (Saturday, March 21, in Hagerstown, Md.); HAT Run 50K (Saturday, March 21, in Havre de Grace, Md.); Larry Winschel St. Paddy’s Day Run 1M/2.3M/4M (Saturday, March 21, in Pittsburgh); Medal Madness 5K/10K (Saturday, March 21, in Akron); Phillies Charities 5K (Saturday, March 21, in Philadelphia); Shamrock Shuffle 1M/5K/13.1M (Saturday, March 21, in Harmony); March Madness 10H Trail Run (Sunday, March 22, in Elverson); Two Rivers Marathon Race Festival (Saturday-Sunday, March 21-22, in Lackawaxen).
