My First Race

Earlier this year I decided to challenge myself (again) with another one of my get in shape schemes. Some of my past endeavours have been fun but fell way short of acually improving my condition much, some left me laid up for weeks and in worse shape than I started in, but thats another story. This time I thought I was bound for glory... I started running. With my reclusive nature its the perfect sport, Its something you can do by yourself and gain imense satisfaction just knowing with every mile you are getting better and closing in on that fittness goal I set. Having dabbled in this before I knew I needed help to avoid injury and stay motivated so I obtained a great training book from Amazon, just me, my book, and some decent shoes and I'm on my way. I reached my first training milestone 2 weeks ago when I ran 20 miles in 1 week with 1 run being 10 miles. In my book it casualy mentions you may want to try a competitive run at this point. Great Idea, and there just happens to be a 10K nearby the following weekend. Thats when reality landed hard on my reclusive little world. I learned quite abit that day. 1st off at 52 I am young in this lineup of over 1000 runners, I don't know why, but I thought I would be in with a few old guys and maybe even make it to the podium at my age group. I couldn't have been more surprised, 3rd place in my age group finished a full 8 minutes before me. Worse yet at about 100 yard before the finish line this guy passes me, I figured he had to be at least 65, I may be reclusive but I'm also competitive, I just couldn't let this happen, I turned up the speed a little and caught up, but this guy has power and appantly wanted to win our little race to the line so he poured it on. With nothing left to do but give it every thing I had. I won by a nose in an all out effort. I have never done this before so I was feeling a bit selfconscience about the whole ending thing, was I breeching some kind of running ediquite? How good (or bad) should I feel about barely winning over this old timer? Later he came over and shook my hand, praising my effort at the end I was starting to feel vindicated till the age question came up. He seemed relieved to know I was in the 50-55 age group and not in his 62-65 group. I later met several older guys and girls that beat me so bad they were on their way back to their cars before I finished. My time was also trounced on by an 11 year old boy and a 13 year old girl. All in all it was fun and a great lesson in humility as well. I plan to continue my training and maybe compete again. So far the only injury is to my ego.