a little out of my league

Recently I've been hanging out with Maria, an olympic marathon runner. She started coming to our English club at the university and to other Ágape activities. More recently we've been running together, either in races or just for fun. She has been injured and thus isn't training seriously and, in fact, has needed to ease back into running, but that said she is a professional marathon runner. I have no idea why she wants to run with me, other than the fact that I just run for fun, not to compete, which I think she finds refreshing. And we've become friends.

That said, yesterday was not by any means my finest running day. It was hot, I was tired and since we ran along the highway and through a dusty forest I had allergies, so my breathing was shallow and I just didn't have the extra umph. We ran through casa del campo, a huge park on the edge of madrid and then came back to the sports center where all the professional & olympic runners train to stretch and shower. Maria keeps on complaining about how she's gaining weight in her legs, which is understandable, but at the same time is nothing compared to my normal weight or even my in great shape weight. Also, every few minutes she would say, "Hey, look over there. You see that guy/girl. He/she is the olympic champion of such-and-such and has one two gold medals and last year came in second (so a silver). This went on nearly the entire time we were there and I thought, what in the world am i doing here. Although I have to say it was fun. It made me think of running track and cross-country in high school and, while I am completely out of my league, it is fun to know that these are the champions of the world, or at least in Spain. And, since I am SO out of my league, I don't actually compare myself because it would make no sense whatsoever. And it is fun that I run with an olympian who continues to say, "I'm really impressed by you (talking about my running)." Again, I know I'm way out of my league, but it is fun and flattering. And I think she may be helping me train a bit more (we did run almost entirely hills the other day). :-)