Today I ran, and won, the local West Fork Elementary School 5K.
My chances were better here than most races because there weren't going to be many runners. I didn't know, though, that one of them was to be a former member of the University of Arkansas track team! She is our cross country coach, and lately, a marathoner. She is also a wonderful person. You should have seen her running with the little kids in the fun run after the 5K.
She and I traded the lead in the first mile, but then she dropped back and let me go. She isn't in the 5K shape she used to be, but was still was pretty darn close to beating me. She was only about 30 seconds behind me at the finish.
This was an inaugural race, and there were some last minute verbal changes to the course that weren't universally understood by the course volunteers and escort car. Any runners reading this know what comes next. Yep, we made a wrong turn and ran too far. I didn't care though, time was irrelevant. I finished in 21:42.
I intentionally highlighted that word, first, in the title of this post. That was what Mom wrote on my first home run baseball when I was ten years old.
I came to the plate with a man on 3rd base and only 1 out. I was nervous, but I just told myself that all I needed to do was make contact and bring the runner in. I made contact alright. The ball sailed over the fence in center-right field. The coach gave the ball to Mom. Later that night, she wrote the details on it for posterity.
A few years ago, my sister Andrea took the ball from Mom's cedar chest and had it mounted. She presented it to me as a birthday present. Don't I have great women in my life?
The reason I mention this baseball is because that first home run proved to be my only home run. I played a lot of baseball after that day. I had a lot of good hits, including at least one foul ball that cleared the fence, but I never actually hit another home run. Life is funny like that. You don't always know when something is over.
Today was my first race win and there is a very good chance it will be my only race win. I am OK with that. Running isn't about winning races. It is about proving to yourself that you can do anything you want to do.
Come to think of it, I win all the time.
