Many years ago now, when the "Newville Fountain Festival" was in its infancy, I trundled into the event to check it out. As luck would have it, just as I arrived the "5K" race was about to begin. I saw that they had a "walking division" so I thought, what the heck, and paid the $15.00 and got my Tshirt and the race began. It became quickly very obvious that there was only one other "walker" registered in the race as the field of runners quickly pulled away from us.. And the other walker was doing the "professional" kind of speed walking - you know, arms akimbo, hips swaying, one foot always touching the ground. Just like in the Olympics. It was apparent that he was soon to leave me in the dust just as the runners had done. And that was okey dokey with me. It was enough for me to prove to myself that I could do a 5K after I had already walked my 3 mile exercise walk earlier that morning. I recall that at one point the race wound up the hill to the "Green Ridge Retirement Village" and I vividly recall a group of residents had set up a table and were handing out cups of water to the participants. I stopped for a second and asked "Water? Where is the wine?" We had a good chuckle and they told me to come back after the race and we would have a few glasses! I kind of regret that I never did that. They seemed to be fun people. So, I rejoin the race and approached the finish line. As we did there was a Newville friend of mine taking pictures of the finishers. Now, here is where the part takes place. You do the the math. Obviously all of the runners had long ago finished and the only other walker was done also. I as dead last with a recorded time of 39:59 (and I think THAT time was charitable!). The next week in our local newspaper, "The Valley Times Star" there was a picture of me finishing the race and the caption read "Craig Dellinger, Newville, takes second place in the Walking Division of the Newville Fountain Festival 5K!!!! Ha!! Everywhere that I went for the next few weeks, grocery store, post office, drug store etc. I was receiving high fives, handshakes and pats on the back for my marvelous second place amongst the walkers!! I am sure that to this very day I still "owe" my photographer friend big time! #justsayin
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:02:05 +0000