No Pain, No Gain?

I ran a 5k this weekend and finished with my third best time ever. I was in the top ten in my age group, men 35-39. There were nine of us. I huffed and puffed behind the other eight. It was a really small race, but damn, dead last? I was feeling good and then I wasn’t. It didn’t help that as I scrolled down the results I wasn’t tops in any age group until men 75 & up. I dominate when it comes to races in the Deep South sponsored by a Jewish Community Center and people born before 1935. A sixty- seven year old man beat me by more than four minutes. An eight year old beat me by more than three minutes. I would have pushed him down if I could have caught him. I was pretty discouraged, until I saw the results for the 24-29 year old group. What a bunch of fatasses? I won that group by nearly three minutes. I don’t know if it’s more embarrassing for the race or for the three guys in the primes of their lives coming in dead last as a group. I may have been the weak link in my group, but at least I represented with a time under thirty minutes. The fastest guy in the 24-29 group barely broke thirty-two minutes. I’m sure the sixty-seven year old is writing a similar blog post about me. I didn’t almost die in the Mekong Delta so some lazy jackass in his late thirties can take his own sweet time to waddle across the finish line. You know what I was doing in my mid thirties? I was having flashbacks about Charlie. I don’t know if he’s a Viet Nam vet. He was mixed in the crowd enjoying coffee, bagels, and donuts while I was trying not to have a heart attack. I was really regretting my choice to post my goals on here during the last mile of the race. If I hadn’t told everyone what I wanted to do, I would have scaled back my pace saying screw it. I still don’t know what lesson I learned. On the one hand I ran a fast race, which I like. On the other hand I spent the better part of a half hour in excruciating pain, which I don’t.