My Running Competition
It’s pretty hysterical really. Watching me run a race, or run anywhere. I have way too much heft in my mid section to look like a runner. And I run slower than most people walk. But I have completed three 5K’s in the last 4 months. The first one was in 95 degree heat running up and down the ramps in Gillette Stadium. In the last two, on much easier courses and under cooler temperatures, I finished last. Dead last. No one behind me but the truck to come take down the finish line.
Most people would look for some other way to get exercise, for some other way that allows for less assumed humiliation. Like when the elderly woman in the pic above was in front of me and finished before me in one race. All I saw was the back of her, which, by the way was pretty fit. After the race I asked her if I could take her picture because I wanted to remember the person who gave me inspiration to keep running. I just kept thinking, you can’t let this woman finish without you, she’s on the other side of 70. And she’s doing it. She’s trotting along then stopping to walk a bit, just like me. Just a wee bit faster.
“You were ahead of me for quite a while,” she smiled, and I agreed. Just not long enough. “I’ve been running for over 30 years and I love it. So don’t give up, you’ll get better over time.” What a sweet little lady with calves that I can only wish for at the moment.
