43 - The Race Is On

By Kay Heitsch

Evy and Susan continued stopping by the house to visit. I love seeing and talking with them.

One day, the girls reminded me that I had told Todd that I would run with him in the next race. Now, the race was coming up.

Yes, I had told Todd that I would run, but I was not a runner. I was half-joking when I said I could walk faster than those women my age run. Now, Evy and Susan were holding me to this comment to Todd.

I debated with myself and ultimately decided to run the race. It wouldn't be too hard. I never trained, but I did buy running clothes with a headband to look the part.

Ricky, Shannon, and I ran the race. It was harder than I thought. To make it worse, a guy kept running with me, complaining about how hard it was, and so on.

The next day, our neighbor, Bill, asked how the race went. I told him about the guy and also that this man's wife won. Bill laughed and informed me that this guy must have thought I was his wife's competition.

Well, let me tell you this was all the motivation I needed. I decided I would be the competition. I bought two cassette tapes. One was "Enjoying Exercise." The other was "How to Win at Sports." I listened to both daily and I practiced running.

Every time I ran, I came home and fell to the ground and sobbed my head off before I went into the house.

God knew I needed to release the pressure that was building inside me. The running and crying sure helped.

I'm happy to report that at the next race I ran, I saw this same guy and his wife. I ran right past her and won the gold in my age division.

I know Todd was smiling.