Today was the race. Man, it was HILLY. It was like a ridiculous non-stop joke. It was cold, about 30 at the start, so I'm all bundled up in underarmour. A decision I would later regret. But I am getting ahead of myself.
It was nippy as we waited for the start. Marc and I asked a sweet lady, Iris, to take this picture. We lost track of her, but Iris - I hope your first 5K was everything you hoped. We started the run on a strong downhill. I was having a hard time enjoying it because I couldn't help but look at the finish line behind us and think about running up the hill at the end. I just kept wondering when the course was going to level off. It did, for a few miles here and there, but most of the day was grunting out hills. I love how races always advertise as "gentle rolling hills." This is extremely subjective and surely the folks at Run for Hope were laughing the whole time they made up the form.
So to recap the race:
Mile 1 - 8:45, even with the hills... better slow down
Mile 2 - 20:05, apparently too much slowing down
Mile 3 - 27:45, no way..... something is up with mile 2 marker
I took my $1 gloves with the rip in them and I finally work up the courage to toss them before mile 4, but then 10 ft. later start feeling guilty and wondering if I should go back for them. Then I tell myself it's $1 and they're RIPPED, so move on.
Time is just flying by and before I know it I'm at mile 5 and headed onto campus. In an effort to pep up the run I had shuffled on some new music. One of the old standards I put on there was from the '96 Olympics (which to my old self seems like just a few years ago), "More than Gold." You can guess what happened... I started tearing up. I have really got to learn to stop crying on these runs!
So I get it under control by mile 6. And as I pass the Ford Center I see that the temperature is 51. Which is too hot for underarmour. After the water stop I spotted a van and a dumpster and I ran over to it and took off all my clothes and put them back on in a slightly modified order. Yes, I felt a little bad stripping in public, but I was hot and the top had to go. I'm sure folks weren't sure what to think about the girl who was crying through mile 5 and then started putting on a show by the dumpster. But I sure felt cooler, so I didn't care.
At some point on campus a guy tells me there's one more hill. He meant on campus, and in my opinion he was still lying. I finally just gave up and walked. I picked it back up at the top of the hill. Until we were leaving campus and I got to another hill and I walked it too.
I knew I was getting tired because I started having irrational thoughts. I saw an elderly couple cheering us on and I was resentful of their lawnchairs. I started being resentful of all the people cheering actually since they were all pretty happy looking, all sedentary with their lattes and "run mom run" signs.
At mile 10 I saw some sketchy folks loading up a van and I started to wish they'd kidnap me so I could be finished for the day. At mile 11 we were running through the square and I passed a chocolate bar and didn't stop! Now that's crazy!
This woman in a giant luxury SUV pulled past us, then stopped in the road and started backing up to parallel park. I prayed she would hit me so the ambulance would give me a ride.
A little before the mile 12 marker a girl asked me how much farther. God sent me a helper; I just didn't know it yet. He may have felt bad about refusing me a maiming with a Lexus. So Laura and I trudged along, step after step, onward to the finish line. There was a hill at about 12.5 that was so steep you could have died if you'd fallen. You would not have stopped til you hit the bottom, screaming and flopping all the way down like Homer Simpson.
Finally we get to the bottom of the last hurrah. A guy, who is already done of course, tells us we're almost there. Just a half mile to go, up this hill. And there's water there. Like this makes it better. I was going to walk, but Laura said we'd made it this far, so why walk now. Somehow we made it. I do not know how, other than that it wasn't my own power shoving me up the last hill. Turns out Laura and I finished in the same time at St. Jude's and we finished together today, 5 minutes faster. That's Laura right behind me! New PRs for both of us!
It was a beautiful day for a run. I was miserable when it was over, but it feels good like always. Today for sure, I came seeking more than gold. Which is good, but I wasn't even close to winning it!
