Competing Against Myself - "You Run Marathons"

Tomorrow I am going to run the Warrior Dash in honor of St. Jude's.

Here is another story about how I kept putting off this whole get your life together thing.

In 2007, I ran a marathon, and I signed up for another. About halfway through training for my second, I got an injury which prevented me from competing in it. After that, I stopped training. I don't know why.

In 2010, I signed up for the Warrior Dash because, hey, why not? It sounded fun and challenging and so I started training. Not really. I ran on and off for a couple of weeks. Then nothing.

When I arrived, it turned out my brother and his friend were also running the race. They showed up in full zombie viking attire (even won the costume contest that night). I didn't even take advantage of dressing up and having fun with it.

I just ran the race. I stayed right behind my brother's friend for the first third of the race. Then I overtook him after a mud pit incident. He was hot on my trail for the next third of the race. For the final third of the race, we swapped positions for about 5 minutes. I was giving it everything to keep up with him. I'm in running attire. He's in furs and carrying a giant cardboard hammer on a broom stick. Except for the costume, he... he looked fine. Finally, he looked at me, grinned and said, "C'mon PJ. You run marathons. I can't beat you." He then kicked it up a notch. I tried to keep up, but the lactic acid was burning and I couldn't keep pace. He finished about a minute ahead of me. "Wow. I can't believe I beat you!" He patted me on the back. "Sorry." I shrugged it off, but decided next year I would beat him.

The next year... I am ashamed to say I walked the race. The year after that, I didn't even go. This year, I started training too late. I let life get in my way. But momentum is on my side. For the next 12 months I am going to train to beat my old self. PJ runs marathons. I can too. I build catherdrals.

-P
Creativity Challenge 23/30 - Almost there.