Based On A True Story

I can’t believe that I did this again. They got to me by hanging a flyer at the dog park so I saw it over and over again and it got into my brain. I knew that today I had to be at my parents’ house by three. I figured that I could run that and then make it to the parents’ in time to take a shower.

My running week was bad. My dress shoes tore up my heels on Sunday so I couldn’t wear regular shoes until Wednesday. On Wednesday I tried to run and just … couldn’t. I don’t know what happened. It felt like I was using a lot of energy to go nowhere. I made it to a half mile and was dripping sweat. I rested and ran back. Thursday I did track work. It went well but on Friday my shin splints and knees were killing me. Not a great pre-race week.

I decided that with two Advil and a bunch of arnica on my shins that I might be ok. I went to the church that was sponsoring the run. I registered and was number 68. Crap, I’m going to be last! My last run had 500 people. They gave me the dog tags as a “finisher award” when I registered. I found that cheerily optimistic.

I looked around to try to find a person who I thought I could beat. I was looking for a fat person. Unfortunately at that point I was it. Totally going to be last. Eventually some walkers showed up and I felt slightly better.

The race was fairly flat except for the first/last 1/10. I started running and was feeling sort of tired. I looked down and was passing the 3 mile mark. Unfortunately, that was for the return and I had only gone 0.1. It was looking more and more like a bad idea.

I did manage to cross the one mile marker at the same time as the eventual winner. Sure, he was on his way back in while I was heading out, but we did it at the same time.

My first mile was 11:30 according to official iPod time. After that I’m not sure what happened. I think the only logical deduction is alien abduction. My time at the end of mile two was 28 minutes. That means I ran it 6 minutes slower. Not only that but everyone in my group that I was with at the end of mile one was still there at the end of mile two. If I had slowed down that much then so did they. That’s not likely so I think aliens taking all of us for 5 minutes explains it nicely. Either that or I misread my iPod. I’m sticking with the alien theory.

There were some run/walkers who were using me as a landmark. I didn’t figure that out for a while. I couldn’t figure out why they kept running until they passed me and then walked. I think whenever they’d decided to run they’d say, “Let’s run to the slow lady in the pink shirt. We can catch her no problem!”

I ended up being the last of the runners. There was a pair of run/walkers ahead of me (not the ones using me) that I almost passed but they started running at the last minute and they were speedy little buggers. I was number 54 in out of 80 some. My time was 39:25. That’s my new world record (which sounds so much more impressive than personal record.)

Good things:

1. I ran the whole thing this time except for a few celebratory walking steps at the mile markers.

2. My internal monologue did not consist entirely of cuss words this time.