This is an opinion column

We think it will never happen to us, but it does. We become the huffing and puffing man or woman hiking up the hill, trying to keep up with a group of younger walkers on the trail ahead. Or we become the shopper who digs in her purse for the coupon that must be in there somewhere, holding up the line and feeling their eye rolls. They didn’t mean to get stuck in the old person’s line. There was no sign for that.

And so, when I was a smug 40 something, I never thought I’d be in the old person’s section of the Cotton Row Run, now in its 43rd year. I thought I could join the thousands of other runners that raced in one of the south’s premier runs, attracting athletes from as far away as Kenya and as close by as Kentucky. There were approximately 3,500 runners in the race this year, held every Memorial Day regardless of weather.

The race offers something for every kind of runner. Kids can jog the 1 mile; casual runners can choose the 3 mile, and everyone else can go for the 10K, the 6.2-mile course that winds through green and leafy neighborhoods before looping back to the starting place in Huntsville’s Big Spring Park where awards are given out and sweaty runners greet family members.

And all along the course route, people come out to cheer the runners on, passing out cups of water or just clapping and shouting, “You can do it!” I used to be one of those cheerleaders until I decided to run myself. I’d trained, a little bit. I’d run most of the course, but not all at once. I had a running buddy, but she was in better shape. We agreed to go at our own pace during the race and not hold each other back.

She sped ahead on mile 2 and stayed at the front of the pack for most of the race. It was then that I noticed another slow runner, a man old enough to be my grandfather. He carried a sign that read, “Ask me how old I am!” So onlookers did.

He was seventy-five, he shouted, and there was an explosion of claps. As the Alabama sun bore down, some of us poured cups of water over our heads. Some of us wondered what might happen to the old man running in this heat. My little group of runners—I didn’t know any of them—fell further and further behind, and our mood turned sour as we heard the man shouting out his question.

A runner next to me complained he could have a sign that said, “Ask me when I had knee surgery.” A woman said her sign would read, “Ask me when I gave birth!” (It turns out it was a few months ago.)

The heat and effort of the whole thing made us irritable, and we hadn’t even gotten to the steep hill that makes runners walk and walkers quit the race.

I’d like to say we held back so we could check on the old man, but we didn’t. If we’d held a sign it would have read,” Please let me finish ahead of the old guy.” So my little cluster of 10 or so people surged ahead and finished the race after the only ones clapping were close family members, including my own.

But now I understand that the old man needed the boost he got from the crowds. He would be long dead by now, but if he were alive I’d like to tell him I admire him for getting out there long after his age contemporaries were sitting, not running. “Good for you,” my sign might read. Then I’d use the emoji sign for clapping.

Contact Beth Thames at [email protected]