Not a Runner

I’m not a runner, but I have competed in one race in my lifetime. (Not including the 50-yard dashes of childhood, which I don’t remember winning)

I’m not a runner, but 13 years ago I chased down a new challenge and talked my daughter into doing a 5K race with me on the campus of Pepperdine University, located on a picturesque hillside in Malibu. What I expected to enjoy was the breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean from the race course at Pepperdine, but what I didn’t expect was a sky full of fog and a starting line full of college students. This 5K had been uniquely designed for the fraternity and sorority students of Pepperdine to compete against one another, to meet the challenges of the hillside campus and to earn the bragging rights of coming in first place. 

Our goal was to finish the race and to do it together, so Ruby and I decided to run the flat portions of the race course and to walk up the hillsides. As the university students ran past us up the hills, we laughed at ourselves for signing up for this particular race. But we finished strong and high-fived each other as we crossed the finish line together. Just a few minutes later, we heard our names being announced as the first place winners in our respective age brackets, and that got us laughing all over again!

I’m not a runner, but this Sunday I am chasing down another challenge and competing in my second 5K race, but this time I’ll be running alongside friends and strangers on the very flat surface of the Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. I have zero aspirations of coming in first place, even for my age bracket, but I do plan to enjoy the challenge and to be open to laughing at the unexpected.