The Foot Race Disgrace

I found my way into a brief foot race yesterday morning with some of my HEC MBA classmates. Being someone who has run several marathons in the past, I consider myself to be a runner. Unfortunately, it was a sad day for me, the UCLA MBA group I was representing, and all of America. In my defense it's entirely a different thing to run 6km than 40km, apparently I'm much better at holding a slow pace indefinately. I came in seventh in this race which was about bottom of the first quartile, or seventh overall. Which wouldn't be too bad, in fact two of the guys who beat me were French military. Now say what you want about the French and their history of military dominance, these guys were champions in every sense of the word. It was actually an honor to be defeated by them. And really of the other four who out raced me I am okay with that too - they were better prepared and really didn't beat me by that much overall. No, what's really unfortunate about the whole affair was the guy who finished directly in front of me and somehow I could not pass. He was wearing - and I'm not kidding - black dress socks, green shorts circa 1970, and a J&B Whisky shirt. And still beat me. It's emarrassing - a disgrace really. I bow my head in shame and vow to train periodically at short distance. Ha, ha.