STRANGER THAN FICTION: COMPETITIVE WALK GOOD FOR BODY, NOT SELF-ESTEEM

When you get passed by a 60-year-old woman carrying a parasol, your future in competitive sports isn't looking too bright.

It's nice to move nine hours from home and immediately meet someone from Cape Girardeau.

Yep, one of the first co-workers I met here in Pensacola was Cape native Lesley Tritschler Conn, who doesn't mind waxing nostalgic about the Rush Limbaugh bus tour, Cardiac Hill and the infamous Purple Crackle. (She claims she never actually visited that last one. Right -- wink, wink.)

So when Lesley asked me to participate in the second annual 5K walk from Gulf Breeze High School to Pensacola Beach, it was tough to say no.

But I did -- at first. See, an event like that involves a combination of two horrible things: Awakening early on a Saturday and sweating excessively.

"It's free," she said. "The company would sponsor us. And we'll be doing the short route."

"Thanks, but no," I said.

"It would be great exercise. You'd be doing something good for yourself."

"Oh, THAT'S really sweetening the pot."

"The weather is supposed to be beautiful."

"Again, no."

"All the participants get free beer and jambalaya at the end."

I snatched the sign-up sheet out of her hand. Hey, free food is free food.

We gathered at the high school bright and early Saturday, the 5K course stretching out before us. For you folks out there who don't understand the metric system -- which is all of you with the exception of five or six middle-school students currently studying it in math class -- 5K is three miles.

I looked around. The runners were easy to spot. They wore jog bras and short shorts, Spandex tights and headbands. Some of the guys in Spandex didn't really need to be, if you get my drift.

The walkers pretty much looked like me -- more smooshy and less serious. There were a few baby strollers decorated in purple, gold and green streamers for Mardi Gras. Several women in their 60s, probably members of the same social club, wore glittery Mardi Gras hats and carried festive gold parasols.

A loud, unintelligible voice cut through the crowd. The few runners who could understand took off and the rest followed. We walkers heard the mumbling megaphone voice a second time and took off like a big, colorful herd of cattle.

Lesley probably would have won the thing if she hadn't felt compelled to make sure I finished alive. We felt the wind off the baby strollers as they breezed by. Then it came -- the steep bridge to Pensacola Beach.

I thought I was doing OK until we passed a paramedic station along the route. One of the workers looked at me with scared eyes that said, "The big girl is going down, and I'm not strong enough to lift her."

But that paramedic was wrong. Lesley cheered me on, we made it to the beach and the finish line was in sight. I decided to raise my arms in a Rocky-like motion to celebrate my success.

Then came the three most self-esteem-battering events of my life.

First, a runner who had done the 15K course ran straight into my elbow. Second, a man in a wheelchair who also had done the 15K passed me. And third, when I was only a few yards from the finish line, the 60-year-old women in hats and parasols stepped ahead and beat me.

I got to see the printed results. In the "females, age 19-39" age group, I'd finished 88th out of 90 participants.

Apparently numbers 89 and 90 were on crutches or something.

Even the free adult beverages couldn't ease the pain of my crushing defeat at first. But later I started thinking: Maybe I'll be sore for days, but I finished the darn thing! And that makes me a winner!

Yeah, right. Next year, I'm sitting along the course and making fun of the flabby old men in Spandex tights.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who now lives in Pensacola, Fla.