My First 5K

I’m rather under-the-weather today, which I totally blame on exerting too much energy for my 5k. J

It was race day. The mini-marathon runners took off about fifteen minutes before the 5k’ers did. They lined us 5k’ers up; the runners in the front, the I-might-run-or-jog-or-walk’ers in the middle, and the certified walkers-only in the back. My sister and I were in the middle, waiting for the bell to ring.

I blame the early time and nerves, but I got a little slap-happy waiting for the bell. My sister was talking to a co-worker at the event, and I was perusing the crowd. There was an older lady beside of us. I do not exaggerate when I describe this woman: she was mid-50’s, wearing a sun dress and leather clogs, and she had a neck brace on. I leaned over to my sister and boldly exclaimed, “If we do anything today, we are going to beat that lady. That’s our goal.”

Bell rang.  We took off running/jogging, and my sister noticed that we could no longer find the woman in question. “Oh, she’s behind us,” I say. And sure enough, she was behind us. I use the term “was” fleetingly, because the next thing I see is a neck brace flying past us like we were walking.

My sister and I look at each other and bust out laughing. We increase our pace, and pass up neck-brace lady. We continue on this pace, and once again I see a neck brace go flying past us. At this point, we lost it. We knew we were going to get beaten by the neck-brace, sun-dress, leather-clog wearing lady. As we laughed, we heard a guy beside us exclaim to his wife, “See, even she’s passing us!”

We probably lost good time because we were laughing so hard. “You don’t get to pick our goals anymore,” she says.