Betrayal at the Family Fun Run
The Steep Price of a Cheap Trophy
It was early on a Saturday morning, and I was getting ready to go to school. Everyone in my family was, actually.
It was the day of the Family Fun Run, a brief race that began (way too early, if you ask me) in the Midland Academy Elementary School parking lot and unfolded down Psalmond Rd., where we were to turn around and run back to the finish line in front of the school. My mom was a teacher at the school — and all the Boyd children attended the school — so running was almost mandatory for everyone at our house. We put on our student-designed T-shirts and tied our running shoes, then hopped in the car.
There was already a sizable crowd of students, parents and faculty when we arrived. We went to the check-in table, picked up our numbers and attached them to our shirts, then joined the mass of people. I tried to find a friend or two to run the race with, but the fact that we had arrived in just enough time to pick up our number and line up before the start of the race made that nearly impossible. Our principal, Mr. Wilson, fired his starter pistol into the sky, and slowly the large crowd funnelled into the two-lane street.
As a third grader, it was hard to see much of what was going on. All I could see were the arrays of sponsors on the backs of T-shirts that the adults in front of me were wearing, so for a while I just looked down at my feet as some of the slower runners were left behind and some of the faster ones sprinted ahead. Eventually, it was just me and the other people who were jogging at a comfortable — but not exactly competitive — pace.
As I rounded a slow curve on Psalmond Rd., I saw my friend Caleb jogging by himself up ahead. It felt as though we had just left the chaos of the parking lot starting line, so he I wondered how I hadn’t seen him until now.
“Caleb!” I shouted.
He stopped abruptly and turned around, and he looked understandably confused (along with everyone else in the vicinity of my shout) until he saw me jogging toward him. He was maybe 70 yards ahead of me, and he waited until I caught up with him completely before he began running again. It was an act of kindness — of friendship — at a time when the cutthroat and competitive nature of the Family Fun Run could have understandably taken over. He was running with a herd of adults, but he yielded his position in favor of waiting for me so that we could jog along together, which makes what happened later all the more troublesome.
Caleb and I met in the second grade. We went to the same church and played on the same soccer team, and we had become good friends in just under a year. We talked and laughed as we jogged along, and the persisting conversation proved to be a constant distraction from the difficulties of distance running. While I would have stopped to walk multiple times were I running on my own, having someone else there to talk with allowed me to keep jogging without a second thought. We eventually reached the Northern Little League parking lot, accepted a paper cup of water from our assistant principal, and started the jog back to the school. We wove through a maze of slower-running adults as we went, although we didn’t notice at the time. We just ran.
When we got back to around the same spot where Caleb stopped to wait for me earlier that morning, it happened. Caleb started breathing heavier than we had been as we ran, and eventually he started to slow down, as well. I slowed down with him at first, then he slowed all the way to a walk.
“I’ve got to take a quick break,” he said. “You can go ahead if you want; I just need a second.”
I stopped.
In one direction, I could see my friend raise his hands and rest them on the top of his head as he tried to catch his breath. We had only come all this way together because he had taken the time to stop and wait for his slower-starting friend, and that wasn’t lost on me. He had sacrificed time then, and even if he wasn’t verbalizing it, he was asking me to sacrifice some time now. If you’re a good friend, you know that you shouldn’t take the “You can go ahead if you want” advice. It’s just a formality. If you’re a good friend, you wait until you can finish together.
In the other direction, I could see the finish line.
We both know which direction I went.
As Caleb walked and caught his breath, I jogged up ahead. I passed students and adults as the promise of crossing the finish line and earning a trophy became more and more attainable. When I reached the parking lot, a small group of people were hydrating and catching their breath near the gym while a line of people who hadn’t run at all cheered on those of us who were finishing. I crossed the line and watched as a teacher recorded my number, then I waited patiently for people I knew to start trickling in behind me. Caleb was among them.
When everyone finished, we filed into the cafeteria for a breakfast buffet and the presentation of trophies. Caleb and I were sitting and eating together as our families also sat and ate together, and eventually, I was surprised when I heard someone with a microphone call my name.
I stood up sheepishly and made my way to the front of the room, where Mr. Wilson handed me a trophy for third place among students. Third place trophies are famously the last trophies awarded, as they represent a cut-off between those who did well and those who simply did.
Knowing full-well that my trophy was earned through the betrayal of a beloved friendship, and that Caleb would have most likely been the recipient had he not waited on me at the race’s beginning, I smiled with Mr. Wilson as cameras flashed and I became immortalized in Midland Academy Family Fun Run history.
