A Dynasty Begins
The first mile started innocently enough. It had been 9 years since I've been in any sort of a race, so I knew that
it would be foolish for me to run with the people that take off at the beginning of the race. They probably
hadn't dedicated the past 6 years of their life to beer drinking and frozen pizza consumption. I settled into the back
of the first pack of runners and hoped for the best.
It wasn't long before I was picking off some of the younger jack rabbits that had gone out way too fast. One dude
was only 500m into the race before I passed him as he began to walk. By about three fourths of a mile into the race the main first pack that
I was a part of had broken into four groups. The serious runners still running competitively at this point
had put enough distance on me that I could barely see them. The hobbyist runners were still in sight, but their better training
probably would be enough to keep their 100m lead on me away from any danger. There was a decent pack behind me that I could hear
made up of people that while in decent enough shape, they just weren't good enough athletes to really keep pushing.
And there was my group. It was me, a pretty cute dark haired girl...and two nine year olds. The first nine year old was a blonde kid
wearing an under armor track jersey. Too bad for this kid his shirt didn't help him when he got out too fast on the first mile and couldn't keep
his blistering 6:30 mile pace. I caught him on the uphill as he looked to develop a cramp. Welcome to the big leagues, kid. The girl began to fade too
and I started to pull away from my little group.
As we came down the hill I realized that I wasn't going to be catching anyone on that track. I'd have to make up 100m in a 250m course, and I just didn't think
my stupid legs would handle that. And as if the pace of my race wasn't humbling enough, LRS was there playing music and I entered the stadium to Jewel's
song "Am I Standing Still" - swear to god.
So I'm basically coasting through the last 200m of the race when I get to the last turn with about 75m to go. That's when I heard footsteps coming quick.
Earlier I didn't think I had much left in the ol' legs, but instincts kicked in and I dropped the hammer. Dude didn't have a chance as I reached down
and pulled away from him.
As I turn around in the chute to see who was behind me I was greeted with the site of another 9 year old kid wearing glasses.
Hopefully the little bastard learned his lesson: don't try to out kick
a dude that that's a fourteen inches taller than you. It didn't look like he was crying, so hopefully I didn't crush his little spirits.
Brent and I stuck around for the awards ceremony to find out the winning times. As they went through the age groups, I found out that the 9 year old
that I out kicked finished first in his age groups. I was proud of myself for not being beaten by anyone that was not born the last time I ran in a race.
Then they announced the winners of the 25-29 age group.
"First place: Brent Cecil. Second place: Some dude with grey hair. Third place: Phil Scott."
That's right - Natty Sci Cross Country almost completed the sweep of the heated 25-29 age group of runners. The trophy is going right on my fire place.
Posted by Phil on July 15th, in the afternoon |
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