It was a few months ago when my uncle sent me a text message. He has been walking quite a bit over the last few years and wondered if there was ever a possibility that he could do a 5K.

“Of course!” was the answer I gave him while on the inside I was say something like, “hells to the yeah!”

And so came Sunday when we both lined up at the Canisius College Shoes for the Shelter 5K.

My uncle was understandably worried about a few things. He was going to walk. Would he embarrass himself? Would he be dressed appropriately? What if he was last? What would other people think?

Lord knows, I’ve been there with all those same questions.

Here’s the thing: Nobody else cares. For real. We’re all just struggling through our own race, living out our own country song, to really be all that concerned with what anyone else is doing. And for the people who are judging you? That’s there problem. Of course, getting to that mental space is easier said than done, but it’s one of the gifts that running has given me — the ability to let go of comparison. It’s the thief of joy and if there is one thing we need MORE of on this planet, it’s joy. So let’s stop stealing it from ourselves.

I sent my uncle a bunch of race-day tips. He’s walked three miles before. He’s walked MORE than three miles. Many times. There was no doubt he could DO the 5K course. He had to remember that.

But there is something different. He has numbers on his chest. He’s part of an event. Part of a race. Part of something bigger than going for a 3.1-mile walk himself. That changes the game. Now, you’re not just walking, you are putting yourself out there.

Putting yourself out there. It’s scary.

It takes courage to put that race bib on, whether you’re an elite runner trying to win the race or my uncle walking (with a few run breaks thrown in for good measure!) his first 5K.

Let me repeat that for the people in the back:

It takes courage to put yourself out there.

And I am so ridiculously happy for, proud of, and inspired by my uncle for having the guts to do that!

My own type of PR

The only goal I had for this race was to see Uncle Ken cross the finish line. The rest was gravy. I went out feeling a bit conservative but good, quickly hitting that level I like to call “moderately easy.”

The race course is dotted with Canisius College athletes, part of their community service initiative, and I quickly decided I needed to high-five as many student-athletes as I could.

This, in my experience, can go either way. Sometimes, the college kids are tired on a Sunday morning, particularly if the weather is bad, and they are either not paying attention or half-hearted in their high-fives.

I got the exact opposite.

“High five?” I’d ask as I approached a group of student-athletes. “AWWW YEAH!!!” was the response, and I’d get a line of high-fives, some of which I needed to stretch for because, hello, I’m SMURF height and you kids are tall. I tried to get all the 19-year-old energy I could.

I needed it. Because as I ran through the first mile and my split was announced, I knew I was in trouble. I asked again what it was. No way. That was my mile split five years ago. This. Was. Too. Fast.

Ok, maybe I needed to get out of my head a bit. And I quickly shook it off. But I did pay for that fast first mile, moderating my pace in the second half of the race.

I remembered that I didn’t need to start walking, that I could just run slower. So I did.

Until …

My nickname for this race is “Don’t Throw Up In Front Of The Ice Griffs.” This dates back a few years, to when I was covering college hockey and I was training with speed. I was pushing myself to the finish line, hitting that point where I was saying to myself, “There’s the finish line. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.” Then I saw a bunch of the Canisius hockey team. “Don’t throw up in front of the Ice Griffs.”

That’s been my motto ever since.

On this day, about, say 400 yards from the finish, stood Canisius hockey coach Trevor Large. He cheered me on, then went into coach-mode, encouraging me to push to the finish. Pick it up! And I did. And I thought I was going to throw up.

I didn’t.

And I finished with my best 5K time of the year.

But my biggest personal accomplishment was setting a PR for the most high-fives on the course. (Too many to count, but a solid PR for sure!)