Beaten Soundly

It was a chest heaving, heavy breathing, arms pumping, leg churning race to the 400-meter finish. And I lost -- to my six-year-old granddaughter, who had asked to race on her elementary school track.
"Remember when I was little and you always won?" she asked.
Oh yes, I did. She was about 2 1/2 and I'd take Eliza and her sister to the track in Houghton. Eliza and I would run 100-meter "races", me jogging alongside as she ran as hard as her little legs would go. I taught her not to cross her arms across her chest, as girls are prone to do. I taught her to pump her arms; she tended to run with her arms at her side. But even then, she needed no coaching on her legwork. She loved to run and she ran fast.
"I couldn't run very far then," Eliza said. 100-meters, maybe 200, that was all. This year at school she earned two key chains, both with the emblem of a foot with a heart cut out of the middle -- one for every five miles she logged at school. One time she beat everyone in her class. Another time she beat all but one boy. And yesterday she beat her gramma.
"You must have run that in about. . ."
"I don't want to know the time," Eliza said. "I just like to run."
And I like to run with her -- especially when she wins. It's time. She is young; I am old.