New Year's Day Upset

Ben and I have been married 6 1/2 years. There's not much I don't know about him. I know his favorite pizza (thin crust with onions). I know which websites he checks obsessively during the day (Drudge Report, CNN, Woot, and Rotoworld). I know that he secretly watches Ultimate Fighting (Ben says, "mixed martial arts") when I'm not home. Still, it's good to be reminded that you can never truly know everything about another person. I guess it helps keep things more interesting.
The whole thing was my idea. I thought it would be fun to run a race together with my brother, sister, and Ben when we were in Dallas together after Christmas and I found a 5 mile race to do on New Year's day, not too short, not too long. Ben has come a long way with his running. He could barely run a mile a year ago because of some knee issues and now he runs regularly and is training for an Ironman, which involves running a marathon after all the swimming and the biking. We don't get to run a lot together. One of us has to be here to watch the girls so we usually take turns. Still, the times we have run together, I'm usually the stronger runner. I don't know what it is.
So, I was feeling pretty confident about the race. My brother refused to train so I knew he was no threat. (For his amusing take on the race see http://byudalton.blogspot.com/) My sister runs and is in good shape, but wasn't really in training. And there was Ben. Ben was the known factor. There was no way he was going to take me on. So at this point I might have indulged in a little trash talk. Not a lot, but what's the use of training hard if you can't have a little fun at the expense of others?
I knew Ben was a little worried. I could see it in his eyes. The race started out great. We lined up near the front and got a good start. I lost Ben for a little bit, but he caught right up to me. Here's where I should have realized something was going down. I tried to talk to him. Just to see how he thought our pace was, how he was feeling etc. I got a small grunt in response. 1 mile went by. We were going way too fast so we slowed down a little. Then a few people passed us and that wasn't cool so we sped up a little bit. The second mile went by, Ben was still with me. And we are running pretty fast and I was already thinking, "how much longer is it already?" We hit mile 3, Ben was still there, and I thought for the first time, "I wonder if he DOES have it in him to beat me."
Around mile 3.5 Ben dropped me. Not by a lot and I let it go for a little bit since there's still a lot of race left and I was pretty tired. When we hit the 4 mile mark I gathered up some strength and came up behind him. He says he heard me coming and was tired himself, but also heard that I was breathing pretty heavily and decided to demoralize me. Just as I caught up to him, he put in a burst of speed and left me behind again. And that was that. I couldn't recover from it. Final times, Ben 33:08, Juli 33:15. It doesn't sound like a lot of time but that 7 seconds represents the whole of Ben's masculinity.
So on the first day of this new year, I learned that Ben has a lot more game than I do. In the end, I think it's great we are able to race together and push each other to be better athletes. I'm hoping for a better outcome next race though. After all, Ben has lost his element of surprise. And so, until we meet again...



BEN'S SIDE OF THE STORY

Juli is a better runner than me by far (even when not accounting for the gender differences). My plan was to stick with her and try and win it somehow at the end. I beat her with simple mind games--years of competitive swimming may have given me a competitive edge here at the expense of my stunted height.

Mile 1: Juli was running way too fast. I was a little behind her, but I gutted it out to stay close. I was worried.
Mile 2: Juli slowed down, and I was barely hanging on. I thought I was slowing her down, and I did not think I could hold the pace very much longer. I told her twice to go on and have a good race (I had rehearsed how I was going to send her off in my mind for many weeks before the race when the inevitable time came for her to drop me. I thought this was very magnanimous of me.).
Mile 3: Hey, I was still running with Juli. Weird. This is where Juli starting making mistakes. We were looping back and people were starting to tell us "Good job" as we passed them going the other way. Juli would invariably respond "thanks." I huffed to her not to say anything. She responded that that was rude.
At about 3.6 miles Juli made her big mistake. She told me that maybe I had it in me to beat her. I sensed a moment of weakness and started my kick. Now, I wanted to start my kick at 4 miles, but I started it early due to a miscalculation. (I thought the 5K marker was 3.6 miles, and thus was thinking that I was starting my kick at 4 miles. But I wasn't).
Mile 4: I was beating Juli. Sweet. I was really tired. At about 4.25 miles I heard Juli coming up behind me. I didn't get very far ahead of her with my premature "kick." All my visions of glory were slipping away. I fully expected her to blow by me. I heard her coming . . . inevitable . . . inexorable. She was right behind me when I heard her breathing really hard. Had she pulled even with me, I would have given up and walked the last 0.5 miles. I was tired, hurting, and done. My premature kick hurt me. But instead I turned it on and ran like a man possessed for only about 10 seconds, but it was enough. I couldn't let Juli pull even with me. And it worked.
Mile 5: I won by a few seconds. It was a miracle. I finally earned some respect in this household. It was my one moment in time. Oh, and Juli did much more than "a little trash talk." Juli just told me that no one cares about our stupid race. But that is only because I won. And mixed martial arts is less violent than boxing.