So while I was stoked to still be standing upright, Amy cried actual tears over me not winning the Auckland half marathon on Sunday. The fact that I was never, ever going to come even remotely close to winning, and my (fleeting) joy at improving on last year’s time meant nothing to her.

I gave her my participant’s medal as a jollying-up tactic, but she held it sadly and asked, “well who DID win?”
I invented a quick story about a runner named Jonathan winning, who’d run lots of races (because I DON’T KNOW).
She thought about it for a while, then morosely looked out the window and muttered, “well, I hope Jonathan got an actual trophy, and not just the same medal that you and all the other people who didn’t win got given”.