A Humbling Moment

When it comes to physical competitions with my children, I like to hold back a little, build up their confidence. A few days ago I just about had my confidence ruined...

...Tuesday night my daughter Natalie, who is 10, walked up to the school for the school's Book Fair Open House. We looked at books, played some games, and had a couple of cookies. None of Natalie's friends were at the school, though. It seemed the event was being run BY the high school kids and designed FOR the primary level kids, and Natalie's age was in between the two, so after about 15 minutes we headed for home.

Our house is maybe 250 meters from the school, and Natalie, who wants to run track next year, said to me, "You want to race home?"

"Sure," I said to her. "On your mark, get set, go!"

As I said at the beginning, for my daughters' entire lives I've held back a little for them. If we were going to race, I'd let them get a little bit of a lead, and then I'd race ahead of them for a few steps before putting on the brakes and letting them pull back in front, and then at the end I'd explode forward and either barely beat them or barely lose to them (I tried to make the victories about 50/50 so that the girls could taste both winning and losing). I don't know whether the girls ever realized I was letting them win sometimes, but in any event they didn't seem to mind.

When I yelled "Go" on Tuesday night, things began as they always had in the past. Instead of running full blast I broke into an easy run, barely a jog, and after Natalie got a few steps in front of me I turned on the juice and took off.

Except that, when I turned on the juice, I didn't gain any ground on Natalie! In fact, I was still LOSING ground, falling now a good four or five meters behind her. She was BEATING me! For real!

This race went from being a cute game to serious business at that point. I forgot that I was wearing blue jeans and a heavy henley shirt. In my mind, I was in my uniform back on the track in high school, having just turned the second curve in the 400 meter dash and heading down the final straightaway. "Get your legs up high!" I could hear my coach yelling to me from the stands. "Relax, and don't cross your arms across your body! Everything in a straight line!"

I slowly began to gain ground on Natalie, but the emphasis was on the word "slowly." We were more than halfway home, with maybe another 100 meters to go, and I didn't think I could overcome the head start that I had given her. I DID have one additional gear that I could have gone into, but it was a cool night and I hadn't stretched and hadn't been in that particular gear for a long time, and I was afraid I might hurt myself if I really opened myself up. But darn it! If I didn't catch her by the time we got to the near edge of our nearest neighbor's house I was going to go all out, injury or not!

Thankfully, though, the heavens had mercy on me, and I didn't have to chance it. With about 50 meters left Natalie somehow stopped on a dime and I shot past her. I screeched to a stop and turned around. She was bent over with the palm of her hands on her knees taking huge gulps of air. "You win!" she managed to gasp.

Apparently, though Natalie was faster than I was, she didn't yet have the endurance that I did. Thank goodness our home wasn't a little closer to the school!

It was humbling moment, though not perhaps as humbling as it COULD have been. After all, I'd already been through all of this before, in my late teens. My two younger brothers, who were three and four years younger than I was, and whom I'd always dominated physically when we'd been growing up, ended up being a good four or five inches taller and 40 or so pounds heavier than I was. Their growth seemed to be almost overnight. I remember one summer playing basketball in the back yard with them, and slamming back into their faces pretty much every shot they took. The next summer I was learning the art of the fallaway jumper in order to avoid getting my own shots rejected back into my face.

I used to wonder why I'd been doomed to be the shortest male by far in the family, all three of my brothers inches above six feet and me inches below it. But maybe it was all preparation for Tuesday night. I'd been through it before, so I knew how to react. I walked up to Natalie, myself out of breath, and said to her, "That was...fun...If you hadn't gotten tired....I think you would have...beaten me...Good job."

She smiled, and we WALKED the rest of the way home.