Flashback Friday: Super Humility

Mr. Loser of the Loser Report commented on my Booze Hounds Guide to Passing, asking about my worst getting passed moment. Here we go.

I was struggling through my first marathon, the 2007 Akron Marathon.

I was at the falling-off-the-cliff stage of the race, where I was just trying to make it through the last six miles.

Around Mile 21 is Firestone High School, a point in the race just before the dreaded Garman Hill when you should be summoning some reserve confidence. But that's exactly when I saw Super Man, who looked like a desiccated old shoe, wearing a blue T-shirt with the giant 'S' on his chest and a tiny red felt swatch taped to his back for a cape.

If this was Super Man, why did I felt like I'd been socked with an anvil of Kryptonite?

He passed me as we crossed a set of railroad tracks, and if a locomotive were to have come along just then this Super Man would not have been more powerful than it. He wouldn't even have been able to outrun it.

But he left me in his dust, with that fig-leaf of a cape waving to me as he passed.

But look at him! Doesn't he look like he's having fun? I hope to have that much fun when I'm running marathons at his age.

I actually have two embarrassing getting-passed-by-an-old-timer stories, but this one had a picture. The other was at the 2008 Towpath Marathon, when I committed a cardinal sin of passing. I got re-passed.

There is a good lesson here: Experience matters. And if you don't have experience, you can always pray for an eastbound freight train to satisfy your worried mind.

Happy Hour is nearly upon us, teammates. Enjoy the weekend. Run well and drink well.