runner #1394

the beauty of this blogging system is that the post is dated according to when the writing began. in this case, i am finishing it three weeks after that fact.

becky and i ran the rex e. lee run today, which, if himes and maevis ever do win the byusa elections, will be changed to 'the t. rex e. lee escape'.

when i was younger and whimpier, the 'mile run' day in elementary school gym was the most dreaded day of the year. 15-20 years later, i am, for some reason, paying $20 to run 5K. but they do give us a t-shirt, and i wear it with pride.

the interlude between my signing up that morning [there is a late fee for signing up the day of, thank you] and the start of the race was spent in my little honda, learning about glands and the kidneys. hearing how many things can go wrong with my little body is horrifying, and i wonder if i should be out running more or less.

we saundered over to the starting line about 20 seconds before the announcement for everyone to line up and soon found ourselves at the front of massive crowd, roughly numbering around 800[?].
fortunately we were not the only ones who acknowledged that we are not the front of the line runners and made friends with other nervous contestants as the man on the p.a. announced that the less-experienced runners should be toward the back.
heck no. this is my one chance to be in the front, and i 'm going to enjoy it.

moments of anticiapation go by and 'george q.' the cannon goes off, starting the race.

this is an interesting moment of relative motion, as hundreds of people are passing me. confusion reigns in my physiology as my brain demands more steam, as it seems we are hardly moving. my legs holler that they are indeed going as fast as they can. in its own way, this is a bit of a trip.

by the time we reach the top of the hill, where the byu printing press is, we and our like-abilitied runners have found our place and our groove.
becky's goal is to not run the entire race.
i admire that but know that i have not been training like i should have and will do whatever i need to do.
i manage to walk/run and still keep up with her the entire way.
i feel pretty cool when we run by people holding cups of water and i can grab one from them in a splash of water.
i felt not as cool when my sister threw her half full water cup off to the side, only to hit my shoes.

our time was 30:19, which i was happy with.

the 'runner's bags' were a far cry from the oscar bags; ours contained a tube of lotion written in chinese and several coupons for various local establishments.

and they were out of water cups.
we took a trip to the chevron across the street and downed a powerade.

today, three weeks later, a girl down a few houses had me push her around the block in her stroller as she demanded 'faster! faster!'
i need to run more.