3:47 am. Lola sat on my face, again. 13 minutes before my alarm clock went off.
Lola is our cat. She’s hungry. Then I sat upright in bed like an electric shock had hit me.
Competition Day!
Just 15 days earlier I had signed up for a CrossFit competition across town on the spur of the moment. The organizers had a 40+ Masters division. At 57 I’m usually competing with 35 year olds.
Event 1 was starting in just 2 hours. It was a brisk 2 kilometer trail run in a local park in the west end. I fed the cats, had a shower, drank a protein shake and called an Uber at 5:00 am.
At 5:52 am I was standing outside Parque Ecologico del Poniente. By 6:15 am the organizers were calling 85 athletes to the mass starting line. I had just a few moments to find my rabbit.
What’s a rabbit? I started running crosscountry in grade 8. My eyesight is terrible. So I always look for that lean, mean rocketship that I can run behind at the start of a race.
Squinting, I saw a blurry red splotch. It was either a mailbox or a lamppost. Nope, it was my rabbit. There he is. Señor Conejo Rojo. Red Rabbit
Tres…dos…uno…VAMOS!
He took off like a cannon. There were teams of 3 holding ropes beside us. There were Intermedio women with amazing muscles. Advanced men with six packs on top of their six packs. Mass starts are so crazy! I just hit the accelerator and tried to keep up.
We were flying on the trail, absolutely flying! I remember thinking this rabbit will cool his jets pretty soon. But 600 meters down the path my lungs were baking, and my legs were trembling. I geared down before my engine blew up completely.
The red blur turned the corner and I saw him do a 180 at the halfway turnaround. On my left a stocky dude cruised past me and had 20 meters on me as we all made a hard right down into the bowels of the park.
This part of Mexico is muy plano. Very, very flat. No mountains, no hills. But this park is a special prehistoric throwback. Cliffs everywhere. Huge up and down hills. And I’m running alone, engine baking in the red zone, trying not to wipe out on the gravel paths. Then suddenly….
LOOK OUT!
I haven’t run hills in a decade. And suddenly I was hurtling down a steep drop at breakneck speed. Self preservation kicked in as I tried to keep my feet under me. I heard the scrape of gravel as a blur zoomed by me, and then another. What was that?
I hit the straightaway at the base of the drop and realized 2 guys had blown by me. I mean they had BLOWN BY ME! That was some fast and furious type running. I could hear the cheering at the finish line in the distance. Time to empty the tank and catch those guys!
And of course, I suddenly realized too late that the last 200 meters of the race was uphill!
My legs, already filled with acid and regret, refused to give me top gear. The three of us had caught up to the second place guy. The Red Rabbit was nowhere to be seen. And the four of us were locked into a battle with gravity and fatigue on the hill climb.
Ever been stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and seen someone walking on the sidewalk faster than you? It felt like my shoes were 50 pound concrete blocks. I crossed the finish line in 5th, 4 seconds behind the 3 way logjam for second in 8:49. And Red Rabbit?
He ran a mind-numbing 7:40 at age 50. Part of me was mildly satisfied for picking him out of the crowd as the man to beat. I had a feeling he was fast. Oh man did he drag me into deep water. But going into a strange trail run, in a hilly park, basic Spanish and with a mass start? I was satisfied that I had given 100%.
I still had 5 more hours of CrossFit competition. 3 more lifting events. Spoiler alert…I didn’t win. But at my age, you disconnect from the scoreboard.
The real battle is me vs ME.
Can I show up on competition day and beat my scores in practice?
Can I execute the workouts to the best of my ability?
Can I be an example for the parents of the younger athletes?
Can I smile and say “buenas dias” first?
One day perhaps I will be too old to do burpees and run hills. But until then? I will keep showing up early, squinting at the clock, and doing my best.
