Make it your personal race, not an actual race with all the others. You don't know what training regimes they have but I am pretty sure it's nothing to do with bent at precarious angles rebuilding machines when you should be stretching before running, or stretching after running rather than lying down flat on your face thanking your landlord for not getting the shagpile carpet which would have suffocated you by now.

OK it's in the high nineties here and my brain is melting.