Part 2 "Life Lesson"

I felt a little stiff as we trotted along, but with each stride I loosened up and thought to myself, “This isn’t so bad after all.  Could it be, that maybe, I was in better shape than I thought?”  After going half way around the course, on the first of two and a half laps, I became aware that our pace had increased a little.  No problem, I reflected, because I had a lot of juice left in the tank, the legs were limber, and I was feeling the mojo.  Ashley was now ahead of me by a few steps, when the first bead of sweat ran down the side of my forehead over my cheek.  It’s a weird feeling (not a great sensation) to have a warm drop of sweat running down your face when it’s cold outside.  Anyway, we now had completed lap one.  As we continued along talking smack back and forth to one other, I made a decision.  In retrospect it was an unfortunate, fateful decision.  I had decided to turn the heat up on Ashley and pay her back for her earlier taunts.  The strategic timing of my decision was based on the fact that she was complaining about her side aching, plus her breathing had grown heavy and sounded like a mule with severe laryngitis.  No mercy!  So I kicked in the after burners, went at an all out sprint and passed by her like she was standing still.  The whole time I was laughing and repeating, “Who’s the old man now?”  After running far ahead, showing her my superiority, I stopped and jogged back to her and once again we were side-by-side in perfect cadence. But something unsurprising had happened to me.