The Race

Today, I ran my first cross country race of the season. For most people, It was a fun meet, given that It was VERY rainy and muddy, and there were lots of puddles to run in and stay cool. Oh, for many runners today it was the best of times, teammates running side by side, running in pure harmoney. That wasnt me... At all. I came into the race with a healing sprained ankle that was rapidly transferring the pain straight to my shins, causing a wicked bad case of the shin splints. Before the race started, my fellow teammates and myself ran around the perimeter of the aging soccer field that made up most of the course. Now, to the rest of my cross country pals, this warm up was as easy as eating cake. They were able to hold decent conversations about nothing, while I was like a terrible old car falling apart as It was driving on the interstate. First It was the pain in my old sprained ankle, and then surprisingly It was in my other ankle as well, for medical reasons beyond me. Then, finally, the pain put my ankles of their misery and shot directly to my shins, where they remained. By the end of the warm up, I felt like I had just run a race itself. At this point, I had two options: A: give up, and not run the race at all, OR B: Suck it up and run the race. I chose B, of course. I've never in my 6 years of running missed a race, so I couldn't break the tradition. SoI sucked it up, and brought up the rear for my teammates, while they ran good races. Me, on the other hand, had some fun running in the puddles, but I had the shin splints and cramping to deal with. But that's that, I ended up finishing last place, and I really could care less, I'm not embarrassed about it, I'm just glad I finished, and If i had to do so by bringing up the rear for my fellow teammates, then so be it.