It was on Thursday afternoon — as I’m eating my grilled cheese sandwich, a handful potato chips and Double Stuff Oreo cookies — that I realized that Saturday was only two days away, and on Saturday I am running a half-marathon.

What am I doing eating chips and cookies????

And then I made the mistake of checking out the race results for last year’s half-marathon, as well as the half from just a few months ago and saw that the times were shockingly quicker than I realized they would be. Now, all I can think about is how I might finish last.

I remember the first 5K that I ran — I actually made my husband turn around and make sure there were people behind us. There were. I finished that race with my best time ever, it was something like 30 minutes 32 seconds. Of course, I’ve never broke that time since. And this year I can’t even run a 5K straight without throwing some walking in there — which drags my average pace down. However, put me on a treadmill and I’m good to go for miles and miles and miles. It’s the outdoor stuff that I can’t just find a good pace for and stay there.

So here I am, fretting about being last. And quite honestly, I know I shouldn’t care about this, but I do. And it really doesn’t make sense in my head because last week when I ran the 18 16 mile build-up run with the Striders I was dead last from the start, and I did not care. Well, maybe just a little bit, but it wasn’t so much about the stigma of “being last” as it was the fact a that I didn’t study the route and I was very concerned that because I was away from the main pack of runners that I wouldn’t know where to go. Well, it all worked out, right? I mean, I’m obviously not wandering around the lakefront trying to find my way home.

As I was whining to my husband about it this morning, he reminded me of his wrestling record from his high school sophomore year: he won 6 out of 30 matches.

Sidenote: How does he remember this stuff??? He knows what weight he wrestled at for every year, what schools Muskego High School beat, who went to State, what his record was, how many students were in his graduating class, etc… And it’s not even high school. Nope, some history thing will come up and he’s all “we learned that in the 7th grade.”

Anyhow, his record was 6-30. I can’t remember what his point was. Oh yeah, “Honey, you’re just starting out.” And then he went on to a wrestling analogy while I let the dogs out.

So let’s hear it, am I being ridiculous? Would you care?