Way to go!

I said it. I didn't want to own up to this, but I said it. I don't know where it came from, and I'm not proud of it, but in my defence it was during the Death Valley Half Marathon and I was full of that shared comradeship that you only get from tough events like that. I can only assume that, carried away with the whole "in it together" thing, I got a bit further into the community of runners that I was in at that moment. Since they were nearly all American, then I became, for a brief moment in time, American. Honest, it isn't because I've been here too long. I haven't started being nice to people or anything stupid like that, and I haven't started to eat pop tarts. No. It was just the heat of the moment and seeing the heat of that moment was Death Valley, I think it should be excuse enough. I was running, others were running. I was on the way back, they were still on the way out. I was trying to be encouraging, supportive. I recognised some of them were in a bit of distress. One guy was in all black, and was sweating so much he looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over him. He was quite literally dripping, and I really doubted that he would make it. And then, there it was: instead a cheery "well done, keep it going!", or a "looking strong there, good effort!", suddenly it just came out: "way to go!" I heard myself say. "What? Who said that?" I couldn't believe it myself, and it was only the need to finish the race that stopped me from breaking down and weeping, there and then. "It'll be OK" I told myself, "you're in the desert. Nobody heard." But nobody had to hear it for it  to have happened, and I knew that there would come a time when I had to reveal the truth. And here I was, faced with the horrible knowledge that it had happened. Despite the fact that I was running a half marathon in Death Valley - the hottest place on earth, full of reptiles and death, my biggest fear at that point was telling Chris. I figured a lot of my friends in the UK would understand, given the context. I knew that Steve would probably mutter to himself something like "Twat", but I could withstand that. John would say something cheap and then repeat it for years to come while laughing heartily at his own joke, but I'm used to that. But Chris would slaughter me. I didn't know what form it would take: it could be an all out assault, accompanied by his deadly "snort of derision" that can wither mature trees from a thousand yards; or it might be a simple look that said: "I know EVERYTHING in your soul. EVERYTHING! all your weaknesses, all your feeble, cheating mind's capabilities, all your deception." And I'm not strong enough to withstand that, so let's just move on.