It is 2 months and 5 days until the Army Ten Miler. Bill ran last year, and we’re both running this year. His current job affords him very little free time, so he doesn’t get a chance to run much. I’ve been dragging myself out of bed at 415 am so I can run a few miles before he goes to work.

When I first said I would run (many many months ago), Bill said he would run with me…not just run the race at the same time, but run right there next to me. I thought that was really sweet. But I told him it was ridiculous, since the best I could do was a 12 minute mile, and I would just hold him back. I’m now doing about a 10 minute mile, and I’m confident I’ll be able to keep up with him. There are days I even dare ask him who will be keeping whom back?

I have to watch that, though. He’s awfully competitive. Yes, he’s very supportive and loving, but if I were to get just a bit too cocky, he’d leave me in the dust and laugh about it. I’d be laughing too: at his competitiveness.

I’ve never run in a race before. I’ve never run 10 miles before. I ran 8 miles back in June, but then I hurt my foot and I’ve only gotten back up to 5 miles last Saturday. Weekdays, I do 2 or 3 miles and it hurts a little.

Bill has told me that my competitive side will come out in the race. That I will find myself running a faster pace than a 10 minute mile. That I will be pushing myself harder than I ever have before. Perhaps. It might be hard not to, since I’ll have him there next to me saying, “See that lady up there…the one in the white shirt? We’re going to pass her…come on!” And off he’ll go.

I may not care too much about the lady in the white shirt, but I am competitive with him. Just him. Every now and then, we play Scrabble. He beats the pants off me. By hundreds of points. I was a National Merit Scholarship recipient…he barely graduated high school. He doesn’t know how he made it through college…I had the highest GPA within my major of my graduating class.

In all fairness to his intelligence, I must say that he is the smartest man I know. I hate to admit it, and often will not admit it to him, but I even think he’s smarter than I am! But the grades he got in high school and college reflect a mental laziness that drives me insane!

A few days ago he told me that he had been assigned to a team at work for the Ten Miler.

“You’re on a team?”

“Yes, they had the Fun Runners and the Rum Runners.”

“You’re on the Rum Runners, right?” (pause) “What’s the difference?”

“One is the slow team and one is the fast team…the Fun Runners is the slow team and the Rum Runners is the fast team.”

“The Rum Runners is the fast team? I’d have thought they’d be slow…as in I’m hung over or still drunk.” (pause) “Wait…you’re on the fast team?”

“Yeah, go figure.”

But he’ll do fine. I run as many days a week as I can, and I’ll manage to finish the race. He rarely runs and will finish right there next to me. I got the good grades in school, but he spanks me in Scrabble.

It reminds me of the parable about the workers in the vineyard. Everybody gets the same reward at the end, whether they worked all day or only for one hour. I completely understand the complaints of those who labored all day long. It hardly seems fair. But I know it is fair.