The 'Race'

My younger son had an extremely busy and full day yesterday. It began with getting up extra early to participate in an all-day track meet and ended with a drama presentation at his school's Arts Night.

As we were driving home at 9:30 pm, he started to tell me that it was the worst day of his life! As he recounted the events of his day, which began with almost missing his ride to the track meet and ended by being so hot in his costume for the skit he was in, that he thought he was going to pass out, the highlight had to have been the one 'race' he was in.

The track meet was a District meet in which only a certain number of schools come together to compete against each other to see who qualifies to go on to the next level of competition. My son was competing in 3 events, one of which was the 100m hurdles. As this event got close to its starting time, he found out that it was only him and one other student that had qualified for this race. That would have been OK, except that the other student never showed, which meant that Spencer would have to run the race all by himself! At first he thought, oh well, no big deal -- with no competition, he would be sure to win! Then he started to realize that there was always the chance that he would fall, default or somehow not even finish the race, plus all eyes would be on him - HOW EMBARRASSING! He realized that it wasn't even a 'race' - he just had to make sure he didn't mess up or he would be disqualified.

When the 'race' began, so did the friendly heckling: "You can do it - you're still in the lead!" "Keep going - no one is even close!" "You can win - you're still in first place!"

Well, he finished the race and qualified to go on to the next level. But as he told me the story, I was laughing so hard that I could barely stand it! He chuckled along with me, but I clearly was not going to be the sympathetic, supporting mom he probably needed at that time. I was too busy laughing and sharing his embarrassment, which probably made it even worse!

He is off to another track meet today - in the pouring rain. I wished him well as he left this morning and never mentioned the 'race' he had yesterday. I can't wait to hear the stories he has to tell tonight!