I Got Your Back

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See the father and daughter trailing everyone at the start of this morning's Ursula Rains Balboa Boogie? I thought they'd be my rabbits, so to speak.

I thought wrong.

That duo finished well ahead of me in today's cross-country 5k, as did every other child and adult except a Vietnamese high-schooler hoping to join the foreign service and her classmate, who wants once day to be either the first or the most famous Jewish-German character designer in Japan.

I had the pleasure of being "the sweep" in today's open race. It's one of the few volunteer positions I'd never held within our track club and when I was assigned the open division, I was a little worried. This is part of a highly competitive cross-country series that draws very fast runners from throughout the county. (And, remember, my county is the size of Connecticut landwise and the nation's eighth largest by population.) It also meant that everyone in the field was at least 10 years and most likely 20 or 30 years younger than me. But I hadn't counted on two high school cross-country runners who were entered by a teacher, who did not make it to the race herself, and who now want to join their school's swim team.

For the first 3/4 of a mile, the pair maintained a run-walk method. They'd walk until they saw me and then they'd try to run away from me.


But I kept catching up. They asked if I was going to keep doing that, and when I said yes, they started to slow.

Until they just decided it was better to walk and talk ... to me. We covered a lot of ground during the next third of the course, little of it the actual course.

Eventually, the faster runners would pass or even lap us during their cooldown, while we still had about a mile to go.

Near the final stretch, their classmates ran up to them to make sure they were aware, "You're dead last." Their response: "Oh yeah, well we made a friend. Did you make a friend while you were running fast?"

You know you're slower than expected when even the finish line doesn't bother to wait for you!
But the dynamic duo from City Heights still found reason to celebrate: It was over.



I should mention that every single volunteer made all three of us feel special, and not just because we were "dead last." They remained just as enthusiastic and encouraging as they did for the frontrunners. It's why I joined the San Diego Track Club and continue to support its programs.

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