Well folks, I ran a 10k. It was great until the last 10 yards, where I was publicly humiliated and didn’t even see it coming. More on that in a second…

Today I woke up early and drove south to run. I paid money to do this. For those who know me this is a big deal. The last time I ran was a 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving and, let’s just say, my “trot” wasn’t exactly a Boston Marathon qualifier. So yea, I basically never run. This is how I like it.

Anyway, last month I got suckered into running the Hellcat 10k, hosted by the Military Museum of North Florida. The course navigates you through the training grounds of the Navy’s F6F Hellcat, which was a super important aircraft back in WWII. I signed up because some of my friends were doing it. I spent last night regretting this, but my FOMO is real.

I ran with my friends at Crossfit Jax. There’s a bit of everything in this crowd. Some are serious, disciplined athletes; the type who vigorously track their macros and genuinely enjoy doing burpees. Others, like me, just like to exercise in a group setting so they can eat more tacos. My type wears Kinda Fit, Kinda Fat shirts. There’s room for everyone at this gym.

We had to get a pre-race photo, and the faces said it all:

I did not train for this race in any way imaginable, but I did eat some Papa John’s pizza last night. So while I completely slacked with my pre-run training, I totally nailed the carb load.

I showed up and set a goal of completing this race in less than an hour – a bunch of us had the same goal in mind. It was time for greatness. On your mark, get set…

The race went far better than I expected. 6.4 miles wasn’t so bad! I kept a steady pace that was just around 9:00/mile. Frankly I was very happy with how I ran 99% of this event. But then we hit the finish line…

Look, call it Bro Code, call it Rules of the Road, call it whatever you want. Everyone knows that if you’re spectating and see someone about to get passed at the finish line, you yell “don’t let [person behind you] pass you.” That’s just basic courtesy. Right?

So there I am approaching the finish. I’m rocking the heck out of the Taco-cat tank that fueled me the entire way. I even accomplished my goal of completing this thing in less than an hour! Heck yea I’m throwin’ up the guns…

There were a lot of people at the finish line, so I was in the spotlight. Well, here’s what absolutely NONE of them told me: a crazy runner dude was right behind me, hell bent on making me look stupid in front of EVERYONE…

So there I was, soaking in my moment of glory and completely oblivious to the disaster that was unfolding behind me. So many people were staring at me – I figured they were just impressed with my performance. I guess you could say I didn’t know what I didn’t know…

Right about here is where it dawned on me that I had been had. This was a complete amateur hour moment on my part.

Once I realized what was going on, I quit flexing and got back to work, but it was too late. I’d been defeated by a stronger, more disciplined competitor. You see the look on his face? He was most definitely not messing around. What’s worse: he’s apparently an Air Force guy. Ugh.

I crossed the finish line alone, having brought shame to my family name.

You know what’s really sad about all this? It was completely preventable. Crossfit peeps are supposed to have your back. They’re not supposed to let this happen. Well folks, I had a Crossfit Jax friend at the finish line and he didn’t say a word. He let this happen. It’s almost as if he wanted this to happen.

The finish was completely unacceptable. I got straight EMBARRASSED out there. I don’t accept any of the blame for what unfolded because I wasn’t properly warned. Moving forward can we just agree? If you see something at the finish line, you say something at the finish line.

But I will say this: we had a lot of fun out there. And that’s a win for a Kinda Fit, Kinda Fat guy who hates cardio.

Now it’s time to house those tacos…