After a nice long relaxing weekend on the Cape, I spent the Fourth of July getting up early to run a four mile race. That's right, while most people were resting and sleeping in on their day off, I was waking up to run four miles. I just love family traditions!
I honestly treated it like a joke. My whole family was there and I was just joking around with them about how bad I was going to do. Which was just a disguise for my insecurity of actually not being good at running anymore.
When the air horn blew, I struggled to elbow through the crowd and fought to maintain a steady powerful pace. It was around this time, that I ran into my cousin, Neil. He had a good stride when I snuck up behind him. Upon running next to him, he turned to me.
"There is no way we can pick up this pace."
"You're damn right, we can't."
He was absolutely right and we both fell behind. On the first hill, I slowed down considerably and saw him once again. I turned to him smiling.
"You were right."
It was at this point that Neil passed me and went ahead by about 25 feet. There we were, cousins pinned against each other. He was ahead of me but we were going at the same pace. For the next mile, I slowly reel him in and make no progress.
Finally, there is a downhill and I let gravity take me as I quickly pass unfunny quips that annoying kids made in chalk below us. I pass Neil as soon as possible and run ahead as far as I could. When running alone, I realize, "Shit, I have no one to run with, I should have stayed with Neil."
I finished in 32 minutes. That is not great for a race, but I was goofing off most of the run and I wasn't taking it seriously. I will however take it more serious when I run the Trumbull Sunset Run, I will take things more serious.
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