It’s my race and… I’ll cry if I want to!

No, no, of course I was not planning to cry, of course not, me a fully grown up adult, crying like a baby, in front of all those people! Absolutely not! And it’s not like I came last, I was 4th, at least that’s what I thought at the end of the race!
It’s like in that joke:

A runner asks his wife: “What do you love most about me? My tremendous athletic ability or my superior intellect?” “What I love most about you,” responded the man’s wife “is your enormous sense of humor.”

Don’t laugh yet, let me tell you the story … ok I think I like running on the road and of course my times are better on the road, but I am not afraid of trail running, and I regularly train on mountain trails, ok I am far from being able to talk about different types of mud it’s true, and when I signed for this race I was expecting to be overtaken by some fast runners but I did not expect to have to watch out for wolves, rattle snakes, bears or other creatures, and certainly did not expect to have to touch the ground with my hands to help my running!

So I was extremely confident I will do well, I trained, did not have any injuries, and unlike the last two times did not have a belly ache the day right before the race! All good, I started well, and according to MY information, it was suppose to be like 3 km on the road and after that will start to climb through the forest.Not even now I don’t know where I had that information from!

Anyway I was there and it did start to climb, BUT it did start to climb right away, right after the start and in 2 minutes everyone around me were making orgasmic sounds, at least what I could hear through my own heavy breath! And ohhh…. when we arrived to the forest part, it did NOT “start to climb” it shot up to the sky like a rocket launched to save the last decent man from Mars, I thought I should have brought my angel wings with me, to be able to finish this one!

I did not know how many girls were in front of me at this stage, but I saw this tall skinny girl around 200 metres ahead, looking pretty confident! So I pushed harder and eventually overtook her.

It felt good and when one of the organizers told me I was the third girl, I thought it didn’t matter if I had to push the skinny girl in the deep valley on the right ( just joking here) I would not let her go in front… and I did not, all the way up she did not catch me!
I was sure I will come third, which was good for me, and come on…. from now on it was a piece of cake because it was only DOWN! Ohhh my god was I wrong… more wrong than ever been in my life because the way DOWN was actually straight down, like a slide straight …. to hell, muddy, slippery, mushy, branches in my face, you name it.

But I said to myself I have to be brave and not slow down just for the fear that I’ll break my leg or fall into the dark ravine on the left, next thing I know I was picking myself up from the mushy mud, looking at the skinny girl overtaking me with this superb technique of sliding down the mud like a cat jumping off a tree.

NO I did not catch her, I must have been behind her with 20 seconds, on the FORTH place, and then it’s when it hit me… I started to cry and I could not help it, I did, I just did, in front of everyone, my tears were running on my cheeks, mixed with the rain…

I left quickly of course because I had to attend this event that evening in another place, not because I was … embarrased, of course not and there was no point to stay, I was on the forth place wasn’t I, no prize for me, only to find out this morning from the official, final results that I was actually second in my category, as the first girl and the skinny one that overtook me were under 18, my dear God, only 20 years younger than me!!!

So in the end I think I did all right and I only had tears on my cheeks because I was happy,

I was happy for every puddle I had to run through!
For every drop of rain that touched my cheeks!
For every deep breath I had to take, I was happy!
I was happy for that young girl that overtook me because she might be a champion one day!
I was happy for every single person that ran the race!
For every bit of mud I had on my skin!
I was happy!!!