I hate coming in last. I have always hated it. My whole life, even if I did not necessarily strive to be the best or the fastest, I always strived not to be last. Seriously, what is worse than being in last place? Until last night I was sure the answer to that question was nothing. What happened last night to change my mind? you ask. Well, I'll tell you:
Last night I went to the indoor track at Tufts for our weekly Dana Farber track workout. Despite the fact that I had been to the workout one time before (as you may remember, I went to this one time before my run-in with the ice patch a couple of weeks ago) it was still intimidating to walk in and see the track full of runners. We did a couple of warm up laps before coach Jack arrived and announced the evening's workout to us: one 1200 (6 times around the track) at 5K race pace (whatever that may be... I'm not so good with the pacing thing, I equate it to about 85% effort), one recovery lap, one 400 (2 laps) at about 5 seconds faster per lap than the 1200 (maybe 90% effort?), and then two recovery laps, repeat 5 times. My jaw nearly dropped to the floor... this was going to be ugly.
We start running and I quickly fall to the back of the pack with fellow DFMCer Sarah. It is beyond frustrating to me to be last this early in the game. Granted, the people that do these track workouts are incredible runners and they've blown me out of the water on every single group run to date, so I'm not entirely surprised by this. But on long runs, there are a lot more runners and I'm not dead last... at the track I am DEAD LAST. As the faster groups lap me on the track, I am transported back to my highschool track, running with the volleyball team, looking down on those girls who got lapped in warm ups... now I am those girls. I am mortified.
With Sarah for company and coach Jack cheering me on, I continue to push on through the workout despite the fact that my legs are burning and my lungs are gasping for air. I get lost in my thoughts. Occasionally I pass another runner and they gasp a few words of encouragement in my direction and I feel an added boost of energy surge through me. I can feel every muscle in my body working, burning, getting stronger. And next thing I know, I'm on my last repeat. I push myself harder to finish strongly and by the time I get to my last two fast laps, I'm barely aware of the fact that almost all of the other runners have finished their workouts well before me. My only thought is that I am going to finish this workout and I am going to finish it as hard as my body can handle. It is at this point that I realize what is worse than coming in last place- not showing up at all.
So, maybe I'm not the fastest runner at our track workouts, and maybe I'll come in last every single time, but who cares? How is being the last one done with a tough track workout ever going to hurt me? At least I'm there and I'm putting in the time and effort and maybe, just maybe, if I work hard enough I will be able to catch up with some of the faster runners one of these days. But, you know what? If I never catch up with the speedy runners, that's ok with me. I'm still going to show up, and I'm going to run as hard and fast as my body will let me and I'm going to be proud of it, even if I'm last.
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