Family "Bonding"

My legs hurt. And as a testament to my poor running form, so do my traps -- (allow me to interpret your confused facial expression as: "His traps? From running? What the hell?")

Let me backtrack a bit. I've been a persistent, conscientious objector to long-distance running. Running to run...?? The whole concept never appealed to me. Ask anybody: Sprinting's my thing.

So a month and a half ago when my two sisters suggested that we three kids do a 5-Mile Run on New Years' Day to do something as a family, I hesitated. But in the interests of family "bonding," I set aside my personal integrity and consented. How bad could it be? I figured half the people would be running with their hangovers from New Years' festivities anyway.

Here's the problem: Jen and Juli (my sisters) are in shape. And good runners. My brother-in-law, Ben, did a half-ironman. I was in pretty good shape until a month and a half ago when I sprained my ankle and have played soccer <1x/week> since. When I said I thought we were going to run together in the interests of family "bonding", Juli scaughed (scoffed and laughed) -- she smelled blood in the water.

I surprised myself. Jen stayed with me and was a good pace-setter; I finished with a 7:40 mile pace, and if there were a "Best Final 200-meter Finish" medal, I would have been at the top of the podium. You should have heard the 10 old guys I passed at the end yelling: "Not fair!" -- of course, having to pass them meant that I was behind them the entire race. Details.

A few observations as a first-time participant in a long-distance race:

• You will find motivators along the way. You have to. For me, it was mostly "make the pain end" type of stuff, but I learned in Psychology classes that negative reinforcement isn't always the best. There were others:
  
• From mile 3 until about 4 1/2, we ran behind this woman with leopard-print gloves tucked into the back of her pants. She was NOT going to beat me*
• Old Man River at the halfway point trotting past and saying "you can't let an old guy like me beat you!"** to which I retorted: "Easy, easy [Old Man]. It's still only halfway [and my sister and I will have the defibrillator ready for you at the finish line an hour from now]."
• If you look at the race results, the top 3 finishers in my division were: Luis Rojas, Francisco Iavariega, and Joseph Velazquez. If I had known racial bragging rights were on the line, I would have trained and smoked them***
  
• I'm no racecourse charter-person, but logically and symmetrically, wouldn't the starting and finishing lines be at the same place? Thinking this (stupid me, right?), I broke too early and a guy passed me at the end... apparently the finish line grew legs and moved back about 40 meters and around a corner sometime between when the race started and when I finished.
  

*She didn't. I smoked her like a joint
**He didn't either. More joint-smoking for me
***You guessed it. Like a joint¹
1. Don't smoke marijuana, kids.