Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

One of my many personality flaws is that I am fiercely competitive. In most everything. In school I had to get the highest grades, and I competed with the other honors kids to finish tests the fastest. As a singer I am a soprano, so I can sing the highest notes. I also can usually sing the loudest and in most groups I am the tallest. But it's a good thing I'm not into this running thing for the competition.

We're slogging through two 5K races this weekend. After 13.1 miles, 3.1 should barely seem like a warm-up. Problem is, we actually try to run these. We're never going to beat any fit person or stand on an award podium, but these sloth-like middle-agers desperately want to break 30 minutes.

This morning we had a race at St Johns Town Center, literally up and down the streets of shops. The weather was cool and there was a small crowd. Adequately caffeinated and arriving with ample time to pee, we lined up at the start. The cannon fired. My trusty iPod kept the tempo as I chugged along to my Fast Running Tunes playlist. Sisters are Doing it For Themselves, Run and Tell That, Conga, Love Shack, Girlfriend. Thank you Annie Lennox, Elijah Kelley, Gloria Estefan, B-52s, and Avril Levigne. Mile Marker two came up, and I chugged past it with the clock at 19:25. With 1.1 miles remaining 10:35 placed our goal on the outside edge of possible.

Around the corner, past the Cheesecake Factory, and the finish after Barnes and Noble came into view. With a few hundred yards left the clock read 29:50. So today I had to settle for my personal record, but I guess that's the best anyone really can ever do.