I woke up at 730, and Mike wasn’t going to come pick me up until 8, so I decided to go get myself a bagel and carb up a bit. At least, that was my excuse. In truth, I just like bagels.

So I was in line at the bagel place, a runner. Ho hum, here I am, doop de doo, I like bagels and running around. Feed me round bread and some yogurt.

Back at my place, Mike and I met up and drove to the starting line. I hopped out of the car and into an open air cocktail party of people dressed in high tech mesh shirts with reflective accents standing around in groups of three or four and sending puffs of breath into the air. I found the table where I needed to be and got my number. Next to my name it said in all caps “HAT”. I registered early enough to get a santa hat. Fuck yes!

I turned around with two long sleeve tee shirts and two pin-on number placards and discovered a long line of miffed chilly runners frowning in unison. I had cut the line. Oops!

I smiled and eased off, leaving the line to consider my character flaws, and Mike and I drove his car to the finish line and then parked my car and walked back to the start. As we were walking down to meet our friends, I passed a fellow morning coffee shop patron, Friend. She has a name, but I forgot it.

“Hey, Friend!” she said. I realized who she was and called “Hey!” over my shoulder.

FLASHBACK!

I walked into the coffee shop and a cute blonde said “Hey there!” the way you’d greet someone you knew well. I said “Hi!” back. “Oh,” she said “I thought you were my friend.”

“Well, we can be friends maybe someday!” I told her with a pat on her shoulder, continuing on to the counter and my delicious coffee.

Then I saw her again a few weeks later, and I mistook her for a girl who saw me trip and nearly bust my ass.

“Hey!” I said, as she was walking toward the bathroom (but really just getting up and moving around so I would notice her and talk to her).

“Oh hey!” she said.

“Aren’t you that girl who saw me trip the other day and laughed?” I asked.

“No.. what kind of laugh was it?”

“It was kinda like that,” I said, pointing to a dude who was giggling inexplicably at me talking to this chick “Sort of laughey-chuckley”. He smiled even more.

“Oh no,” she said, “I’m the girl who thought you were my friend.”

I explained how I almost fell on a loose brick and a girl giggled at me and I did a little dance to show that i MEANT to trip there.

“Oh, I just trip all the time.” she said.

“You STRIP all the time?” I asked, incredulous. Ha ha, sweetie. Take that!

“No, I TRIP.” she said. “What’s your name?” She held her hand out.

“It’s Jim,” I said, shaking it.

“Oh mines… MOO!” I forget her name. Amy? Amanda? Mulva? I have to learn to remember names.

FLASHBACK OVER!

So after I saw Friend again and petted her dog, it was time to stand around in the cold and make stretching poses with everyone else. Stacey was there with a few of her friends who I met. We all talked and hopped from leg to leg for a while.

Soon the crowd began to ooze across the street from the firehouse and down a side street. We were about to start! Our crew oozed along.

We ended up all massed on a sloping block of houses with the start line at the end of the block. It was exciting. I knew I was about to run less than I run in a normal morning, but still. I wanted to get in a good time. Had I known then what I know now, I would have pushed up closer to the front.

Eventually they let some people start. I guess they were the really serious runners who needed a very precise time. I’m not sure. After a while, we all sort of started slowly ambling forward. I wondered when the real running was going to start. Finally we slowly sped up into a light jog.

This was it! Mike and I were off. Everyone else seemed to melt away into the crowd. We were talking about how we’d left them behind when we noticed them a few yards ahead. Sneaky fuckers!

We caught up and chatted a bit, but I didn’t want to chat. I wanted to run! So, I bounded off and the race was on!

I ran through conversation after conversation. Husbands chatted to wives, friends talked with friends. I just ran and breathed and my heart pumped and my watch monitored and the white fluff ball on my santa hat went boing boing boing on the back of my head.

After about ten minutes of passing a bunch of people, the talk started to be replaced with huffing and puffing. Here and there along the way were people in the yards we were passing, clapping and shouting encouragement. That was nice of them.

“Good job 807!” a guy called to me from his yard. Thanks buddy! Can’t talk right now, too busy using air for my muskles.

So, I continued to run and puff along with everyone. I passed a crew of girls with foam antlers on their heads. I dropped my camera. I picked it up, and ran on. My shoe came untied. I tied it and ran on.

After some minutes I found myself on a real assbreaker of a hill. Luckily for me, I have a hill philosophy that insulates me from the psychological effects of a long uphill slog. I don’t look at the top. I just look down at the road and pound on and think about something other than the burning fires of hell which inhabit my thighs and buttocks. Haha, buttocks.

Near the top of said hill, I found my friend Tom chugging along and sweating profusely. I patted him on the shoulder.

“Hey dude!” I said. “We didn’t know if you made it”

He didn’t seem to want to chat, but I ran backwards so that I could face him and told him that Stacey and Mike were behind me somewhere. I wished him luck and pounded on, when who should I encounter but my coffee shop friend Friend and her dog, Chuckles. I don’t know if that’s really the dog’s name or not, but it should be. Chuckles had one milky eye.

I ran past her, calling “Come on Friend! You can bring that blind dog, too!”

She had some sort of retort but I didn’t hear it and I didn’t want to stop running to listen, so I ran on. Hope she’s not pissed.

I stopped to pick up a fleece cap that someone had dropped, and a few minutes later I had to tie my shoe yet again. After a while I found myself running down a channel of clappers, so I guessed it was the end. There were two dudes blocking my way, so I didn’t finish all that fast. The clock said 29 minutes.

At the end there was a person dressed as a polar bear, inexplicably. I thought to myself, you know, a picture with a polar bear would be really keen. So, I hugged the bear and had Mike snap a shot of me. I look like a dork and I’m sweaty as hell, but hey, polar bear suit.

So now I’ve run a 5k race. I felt great! I can’t wait to run more races like that, especially the Peachtree Road Race in July.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Snarky Invective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.