the race

"What place did you come in?," Terry wrote in a Facebook message earlier tonight, after I told him about the boogie board races on the beach today. (Yep, we will have been married for 11 years come Saturday, and this is how we keep in touch while living in separate hemispheres.) The answer: I have no idea, though I know I didn't medal, as those finishers were handed an index card with the number 1, 2 or 3 scribbled on it as they stumbled across the finish line, and I left the course empty-handed. I do remember that though there were quite a few people ahead of me, there were also quite a few behind me -- there were 15 of us racing -- so it was a respectable mid-placement.

I can not swim or paddle particularly fast with a boogie board in tow, and there were no waves to help us get back in (race day was the first calm day in weeks!) so that was a drag. We had to run down from the beach, boards under one arm, and into the surf, then dash out to a lifeguard who was treading water out past the breakers, make our way around that lifeguard (some of us approached from the north, others from the south, so there was some knocking about), then back to shore and up the beach to the finish line. It took about a minute all told. I can't even guess how many yards/meters. It was when I pulled out of the water that I was able to pass a few of the ladies on foot. It's all a blur, really, but what I do remember quite clearly is that at the end I was suddenly neck-and-neck with a woman almost old enough to be my mother, but then she sort of collapsed to her knees and had to crawl across the finish line. She did manage to put her hand over the rope before I could clear it. And I remember thinking something like, "Don't kill yourself over this! Neither of us is gonna place!"

After it was over my legs were shaking and I couldn't breathe but it was worth doing if only to see Conor's huge grin when I found him on the sideline. It didn't even matter that Dylan had picked race time as his chance to lie down on a towel in the sand and take a nap.