A relative of mine is quite the colorful character. He’s the kinda guy who might say “I’ll cut you” if you piss him off and then within a minute make a joke about the entire affair and leave you in stitches with an incorrect but hilarious retelling of the moment. The retelling will inevitably cast him as more intelligent and handsome. I overheard him say “Damn, how’d you get so handsome?” while looking in a mirror on more than a few occasions.

“It’s gonna finish like it started,” is another of his oft-repeated oldies but goodies.

As mentioned in the prior post, I did not train for the Holly Jolly Half Marathon. I finished thanks to the kindness of a middle-aged woman from Pasadena. Her compassion when she saw me cramp up just after passing mile twelve was a highlight of the day. She literally walked the last mile with me, adjusting her pace to mine and allowing me to lean on her steps from the finish line when I cramped up again.

Knowing that this was not a stellar performance, I was surprised to find myself placed third overall for women in the final results. I liked it. The ranking was absolutely wrong and underserved. Still, I found it satisfying to view. “Wow, that looks good!” “How’d I get so fast?”

A quick check on the California Half Series showed me with 11 points for the 3 races completed in their series. The error had gone viral, impacting my rankings on other databases. I didn’t even know earning more than one point for a race was possible. Given that I walk rather than run races, the odds of seeing another 9 point score for a single race is slim-to-none.

It's gonna finish like it started.

I had no integrity while I trained. Then my integrity was tested during the race, as thoughts of quitting passed through my mind for the first time in over a dozen races of various distances. Consistent with the start, my results were outside integrity: Rather than finishing 69th of 74 women, I was reported as finishing third.

I have reported the error. I’m starting 2017 with integrity. Every race is an opportunity to train the soul as well as the body.

See you on the path.