Humbling Milestones

Lyle is no slouch of a distance runner. He's finished 3 marathons and numerous 5 and 10Ks and all at a pretty respectable clip. Adam has been running cross country for the high school and we've been very impressed with the effort that he's put into it and how much he's improved. Still, he's only 14 and quite a bit smaller than his dad and has had pretty minimal experience with races.
Last Saturday there was a huge cross country meet with 20 schools participating. At each of these races there is an "open" event where anyone from the community can run. Lots of parents run right along with the kids. Lyle had mentioned he wanted to run in the open, but we weren't sure if Adam was going to be running in the open or in the JV race. Lyle and I agreed that if Adam was running in the open, it wouldn't be a good idea for Lyle to run in the same race and beat him in front of all of his friends.
I couldn't attend the race, but once Adam and Lyle got there Adam learned he'd be running in the open division, and so Lyle said he'd just watch. Adam told him it was fine with him and as long as he didn't tell people who he was, he didn't care if his dad beat him. Lyle ran with our little digital camera so that after he finished he could get a picture of Adam crossing the finish line.
Apparently the race was huge and Lyle estimated 300 participants. The race organizers made sure the cross country team members were at the head of the crowd for the start, so Lyle wasn't right with Adam for the beginning of the race. As Lyle ran he said he didn't notice passing Adam, but there were so many people that it would have been easy to miss him. Lyle crossed the finish line with a time a little over 20 minutes. He turned around and got the camera ready to take a picture of Adam when he came down the final stretch. He waited and waited and was wondering if maybe something had happened to him when Adam tapped him on the shoulder! He had already finished and beaten his Dad with a time of 19:58!
It's a memorable milestone when a son first legitimately beats his dad and Adam mostly avoided rubbing it in, but the picture does seem to scream, "In Your Face!", doesn't it? But to Lyle's credit, he wasn't the least bit upset. He was bursting with pride at the impressive young man Adam is becoming.