When you are the slowest . . . It’s all about perspective.

I never thought it would happen. Really, I never thought about age. I keep trying new things. But I never thought I would get slower in running. It’s hard to accept.

So when I entered the China Camp Trail Half Marathon, for some reason my young mind thought, just train and surely you can’t be the slowest. Well, when you don’t train sufficiently, like only once before on this hill/mountain/thigh and calf-busting trail, what do you expect?

Well, I expected I would do well. That’s emotion fooling brain, fooling body. The Half was brutal and a killer. I told all the aid stations to LEAVE. I had a cell phone. I was slow. But they didn’t.  My goals changed from “run” the whole thing, to NOT TRIP and kill yourself, to just finish alive.

The irony is that I finished first in my (female) age group – but I was the only runner. And I finished second to last. Not last. As I watched the 20 and 30 something gazelles blast by me, I could wish and dream — and realize I was really never them anyway and I sort of hated them (okay envied). But I was the only ONE in my age group, so that has to stand for something.

Power on. Keep perspective.