Competitive

going up the Main St. Bridge

 I turn 40 this year.  For the past 3 years I have been jogging with my neighbor, before that it was with my friend Susan.  Last year my neighbor tried to get me to sign up for the Gate River Run.

Why on God's green earth would I want to do that?

I don't like jogging, I hate crowds, it cost money....really, I'm not seeing an upside to this.

This year I had a temporary moment of complete insanity...because mostly I'm just partly insane on any given day.  I signed up on the last day you could register for $30 and then I forgot about it.

Until the week before.
The Tuesday before I fell 2 miles into our jog and skinned both knees and my hands, ripped the skin completely off a finger.

The day before the race I read how both bridges pose a trip hazard.
Tears welled up in my eyes...
What have I got myself into?

The race started and it took us 10 minutes to walk up to the start line because there were 5,000 people in front of us.  It took us 20 minutes to go the first mile because there were walkers that we kept having to dodge past.
Six and 1/2 miles in, I squirted a Gatorade thingy in my mouth and then grabbed an orange slice that someone was handing to runners going by and then I grabbed two dixie cups of water at mile 7 and then I got a cramp so we walked one length of power poles.
My mom and family were waiting to cheer me up over the Hart Bridge.....
25 mile/hr gusts going up kinda slowed me down and I couldn't keep up with Craig.
But...
I only finished a minute + after him.
1 hr 37  minutes 26 seconds.

view from top of Hart Bridge

This is the view looking back at the Hart Bridge 

It was not as bad as I thought it would be and I was thankful at the end. Thankful for all the people wearing Christian shirts so I could read God's word along the way.  Thankful for the Christian band at mile 6.
But then...
I started asking how people did, what were their times? And then I started looking at the race results and I saw how good I did compared to other people I know...
we won't talk about the people I don't know or the 16 yr old friend of my son and their time.
I think a little too much pride is creeping in.
I don't know how to tell if I've done good and leave it at that and maybe I'm more competitive than I thought I was.

Disclaimer: the top and bottom photo were stolen from my friend Beth's facebook page and the middle one was stolen from Susan's...I did not stop to take a picture during my jog.