Kool with a Kay

What do you hope you are still doing at age 70 that you do now? Now, don't get dirty on me, but yes, I hope I'm still doing that too.

I completed the Batavia Windmill Whirl 5K on Friday, July 8 and was...drumroll please...dead last again. That's okay, though. As my darling husband says, "You were still ahead of everyone who didn't do it." Yes, yes I was. Thank God for him. I did this race by myself and he stuck with me and kept me out of my head until the race started and was smiling at the finish line when I ambled in.

My biggest supporter and darling husband.

During the run, I met Kay. She was at the end of the pack with me, alternating walking and running like I was. She was 69 years old and had just walked a half marathon a couple of weeks before the Batavia 5K. I was using a coaching app on my phone (Runkeeper.com) that helped me keep pace. I had my phone strapped to my arm and every three minutes, Miss Cool Voice on the app would remind me to either walk or run. Kay was enthralled by my talking arm and asked if she could "keep up" with me. "Of course!" I said. It would be nice not to be alone and she was a doll. I put "keep up" in quotes for a reason, read on.

She couldn't jog for the whole three minutes but could walk much faster than I could so we pretty much stayed together the whole time. An older gentleman passed us and encouraged us to keep it up. "He's 70, one year older than me," Kay said. We chatted while we jogged/walked and she told me about the races she does with her daughter. Kay walks, her daughter runs. And she said something that really stuck with me. "Keep this up [training and doing races] because when you're my age, everything is so much harder to do and if you stick with this, it won't be." I kept picturing myself at her age and the two alternatives I could be: active and participating in things like 5K's, meeting new people and dispensing wisdom to the youngsters or inactive with God-knows-what kind of medical issues, sitting around in a moomoo dispensing wisdom to my cats. I'll take door number one, thankyouverymuch.

Finished!

As we got closer to Mile 2, Kay asked if I minded if she walked ahead. Of course I didn't mind. So she walked ahead and I continued my slow three minutes walking, three minutes jogging. She smoked me in the last mile and I had to smile thinking of her asking me if she could keep up with me. When I finally crossed the finish line, not only was my darling husband there snapping photos like I just finished an Ironman (love him so much), Kay was waiting for me with a big hug and thanks for helping her to get through the race. "I helped you?" I laughed. "You're the one who helped me!" In more ways than she knows.