This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

The First 'Great Wellness Race' Was A Winner (VIDEO)

Children, dads, try different foods, sports.

Salmon. Kiwi. Avocado. Which is your favorite?

Forty teams, mostly of fathers and elementary school-age children, faced all three foods and four physical activities during Woburn’s first .

The team came up with the idea to get dads and children in kindergarten through grade 5 to spend time together around Father’s Day—last Thursday evening to be exact—and do something physical, nutritious and fun. Similarly, the team held “” around Mother’s Day.

Find out what's happening in Woburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Salmon got the thumbs up from Julia Taylor, 10, and her dad, Denis.

“Awesome,” Julia said. Her dad is a health teacher; he said he loved the idea of the wellness event.

Find out what's happening in Woburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Lily Wing, 9 ½, and her dad Gary, also liked the salmon.

“I never had salmon,” Gary said.

Jacob Wells, 7, and his dad, Joe, liked the salmon and kiwi, but not the avocado.  The Wells house rule, Joe explained, is that the kids try new foods. If they don’t like them, he said, they can remove them from their mouth.

“Nine times out of ten, they like it,” he said.

Randy Leavitt’s parents say he’s a picky eater. He tried and liked the kiwi. That was a big deal for them, they said. The closest that Randy, 8, and his dad, Gary, will get to fish, Gary said, is “watching Sponge Bob Square Pants.” Randy really enjoyed the physical events, his dad said.

Some of the teams came to exercise more than to taste different nutritious foods. Madelyn Ryan, 10, teamed with her dad, David, liked trying taekwondo led by Woburn Police Sgt. Paul Tenney.  She liked the kiwi and avocado “a little” and “hated” the salmon.

At the Asia continent station, Tenney taught teams a basic stance, a defensive arm posture and a kick. Tenney filled in at the last minute. His son, Andrew, 18, helped demonstrate the moves, making yet another father-child team. They have been doing the sport together, Andrew said, for about eight years. Andrew started first. His dad took up the activity up more recently, Andrew said, after his sister stopped, and loves it.

Scott Duckworth took time off from work as a firefighter in Concord, NH, to come to the event with his son, Dyce, 10. “It was fun,” he said, as the family headed out from the WMHS track area around 7:30 p.m., an hour after the teams started their first lap around the track, setting the whole event in motion. Each lap was like a plane ride to a different continent. Music from the TV “Great Race” blared in the background.

Gary Reese, a member of the Be Well organizing team and the person who came up with the idea for the Great Race, said he was "thrilled that everyone seems to be loving it.”

“I see a lot of sweaty dads,” he said, and he was “happy to see kids trying different foods.” Kiwi was the most popular, he said. At least one team that tried salmon for the first time the Great Wellness Race planned, Reese said, to buy some soon to eat at home. 

Download the movie

Download the movie

Download the movie

Download the movie

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?