(and I can do anything)

Before the Four on the Fourth this morning I watched a boy, I guessed not yet two, running top speed up and down the sidewalk, a Superman cape fluttering behind him.

“That has to help,” I said to his mother.

She half-turned, keeping a wary eye on the boy.

“It has to improve your time in a race if you’re Superman.”

“Well, that’s what we’re hoping… some of that will rub off.”

As it became clear that Superman had no intention of returning on his own, she headed after him, and I wandered back to the coffee table. Later I saw her strapping him into a baby jogger, an affront that caused young Superman to shriek at the top of his lungs. Superman does not ride! Superman wants to run! Superman wants to fly!

I thought, ok: I’m trying to do something I haven’t done before, to run a time I’ve not even really toyed with in the past but that I’ve decided I’m capable of running. The Runner’s World training calculator says that I can do it — that I can run faster than that, even, implying that I’m a big sissy if I don’t. It is bad enough when high school gym teachers suggest that you might be a sissy; far worse when a computer does it. In any case, I was about to try to do it.

Then I saw Superman shrieking in his Graco prison and I thought, what would he do? He would run like hell and think it was the BEST THING EVER. So I decided to run for Superman. I decided that yes, it would hurt, and it was going to be the best thing ever.

And I did, and it was.

What became of Superman and his mother, I don’t know. I couldn’t stay for the kids’ races, but I hope he did, and that he PR’d the 50 meters. But then every race is a PR when you’re Superman.