Yesterday, my family participated in the Girl Scout 5K & 1K Walk/Run in Washington Park in lovely Denver, Colorado.

We came in dead last.

In our defense, we didn't actually start with the pack, when the race started we were waiting at the potties. And we weren't really terribly motivated. And we had to stop a few times to use the portapotties again, and Maya and Sage got blisters, plus we had a stoller with Tiernan in it and that slowed us down. Mostly, it was a beautiful fall day and there was just no need to rush, and we were having fun with the other family we walked with. I am glad to say that, as the fat girl of the party, I was NOT the one slowing us down, which was my main concern. Whew!

We weren't sure until we saw the results online that we were last in our categories, but we were pretty sure anyway. We had our first inkling that we weren't doing very well early on when we realized that we were being tailed by a police escort, and they were taking down the cones and barricades that blocked the roads to traffic as we passed them. One officer actually told us that if we cut down a side street we'd catch up with the pack. I'm fairly certain that's not a good sign. I think when people in the Boston Marathon see that sort of stuff happening, they take off their bibs and catch a cab home. Not us! At some point there's a perverse joy in seeing just how truly magnificently you can suck at something.

To give you an idea of how wretchedly this went down, most of the folks who came in first were doing so in about 25-35 minutes. The fastest runner did it in just under 16 minutes. The oldest person in the race (a respectable 83 years old, he was!) came in at 53:54. We rolled in at 1 hour and 30+ minutes after the start of the race. We were far enough behind the second to last people that, as I came through the chute I threw my hands up and pretended I was the very first person and asked why the ribbon wasn't up. They humored us and gave us the star treatment, which was mighty kind considering I was just surprised that the clock was still running and there will still people waiting.

Oh well, we're bound to do better next year!