4:30am. Oatmeal. Lots of pink. That's pretty much all I remember from Sunday morning. Until we got to the meet up place downtown. Me and four other Disney folk decided to meet up and shuttle to the race start at Griffith Park. It was COLD! Reeaallly cold! How did I ever survive in Chicago? No one was really awake when we parked the car. That proved to be a problem later.
Upon arrival at the park, there was a crew of Native Americans onstage. The Chief was introducing a series of ancient and customary dances. One represented a Butterfly. The shawl represents Butterfly wings. The flapping of the shawl represents flapping of the butterfly wings. I had hoped there would be something more profound in the dance, but sometimes the dance represents the dance. The Chief talked about the old times and old dances and the way things used to be. "Then everything changed," he said. It's 6:30am, it's freezing cold, I'm about to run a race I'm not prepared for and now I am ladened with White Man Guilt. Superlative.
The lines for the outhouses were long and stinky, though I ran into an old friend, Brooks, there. As I waited in an impossibly long line, a lady with a radio tried to gather everyone for the race start. She urged us to get to the start line, but the 100 or so people in line just looked at her with inquisitive faces and full bladders.
From the line we heard the National Anthem (something I've never heard at a race before) and something that sounded like "Go!" and we could see the crowd slowly moving. James and I checked in our bags and wandered over to the start. Since we are chip timed, it doesn't really matter when you start. Your chip registers exactly when you cross the start and finish. I started to go and James held back. He wanted to wait until The Pack had cleared up a bit so he could run straight through. I started running and looked back to see James alone at the start.
Somewhere in the park, he ran up behind me. Not sure how far in we were, but Mr Blue Sky by ELO was on my running playlist at the time. I found it cute because that was at one time the ringtone I assigned to him.
On the back side of the park, it started. The pain. Twinges at the knee. And the hips. It was far too early for the pain. This was not going to end well. I considered running back to my car at Disney which was only about 4 miles away, but realized my keys were in Tracy's car downtown. Not an option. So I decided to walk. And then run and walk some more. That worked for a few miles. But by mile 9 I couldn't even take advantage of the downhills. It just hurt too much. I was left only able to run when I approached a camera or a crowd of children who were cheering me on to run. Couldn't let the kids down.
As I was running down Silver Lake Blvd, I realized that Russ lives somewhere right in that area. I probably ran right by his place, but I don't really know where it is. And as I ran through the cute neighborhood I felt this strange isolation. I was seeing his new life as a tourist. Watching it from the street and seeing it's cuteness as an objective passerby. I wondered when I passed the Walgreens if that is where he buys drugstore stuff. Is that the Ralphs he goes to? Is that cafe where he gets coffee and bagels? It was nice to see it from the street, to get the overview. I cried. My knees hurt, I should have trained harder, I let myself down and...I was sad.
And then I turned a corner. Downtown beckoned. My friends were there. James was there. And I tried to run as much as I could to get there faster. Drums were playing at mile 12 and 13. A lady on stilts danced (as much as you can in stilts.) And I ran to the finish.
James had a fantastic time of 1:42. Let's just say mine was an hour greater. I did walk most of it, remember. And today, it still hurts. It all hurts.
The gang decided to go out for dim sum, and everyone was kind enough to wait for me. Fortunately the race offered oranges and cookies and other treats to keep everyone's blood sugar happy. So off we went to Chinatown. But no one remembered exactly where the car was. We knew the garage, but which level? And so we walked an extra half-marathon around the garage looking for Tracy's car. I finally had to stop and lean on a pillar, telling everyone else to go one without me. It was like that last scene in Last of the Mohicans. Somewhere between levels 4 and 5, Marlon realized his phone was missing from his bag he had picked up from the bag-drop-off. Now we have a missing car, missing phone and bad knees. Finally, Marlon found the car. We phoned his phone hoping the lost and found people would pick up so we could FIND the lost and found. They did. We did. And finally we were off to dim sum. Between the hot tea and hot bath later, I found a comfortable position for my legs. It involves not moving at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment