Yeah, so what did I do on New Year's Eve? What were my rockin' plans? Was I out partying, getting absolutely hammered with the rest of the American public? Uh... no. No, I was out on Riverside, ringing in 2009 at the Run Into The New Year 5K race. That's right, I was running at midnight. Not only was I running at midnight, but I was running in the dark and cold, along with about 500 other crazy fools.
Now, I can't say that I had ever pictured myself celebrating New Year's in such an unorthodox fashion, but I have to say it was a nice change of pace from sitting at yet another party, bored out of my mind because I was the only person there not drinking or vomiting. Instead, I was surrounded by a bunch of other zen folks, who just wanted to do something new and/or healthy for the new year. Call me a loser-- I don't care.
I can say with complete honesty that this was not my idea. After completing my first 5K last month, my Mom starting scouring the internet, looking for more races for us. She ran across this New Year's race, and so I figured, "What the hell?" My only regret is that we didn't sign up sooner, because we could've gotten cool, red dri-fit jerseys instead of the general cotton t-shirt, but we'll know better next time.
The evening started with my Mom's friend Kris arriving over at my house around 10:00, so that someone could stay with the kiddos while I went and did something crazy for a change. Shortly thereafter, Mom arrived, only to announce that she lost one of her contact lenses on the drive over, and that her dash lights suddenly weren't working! Fantastic! While attempting to remove her existing contact, she found that she couldn't locate that one either, but managed to find it jammed way up above her eyeball. Mmmmmm. So, we decided to drive back to her house so she could snag some fresh lenses. When we pulled up to her house, I realized that I was nearly out of gas, and hadn't brought my bank card with me, since I didn't want to leave stuff like that in the car while we were racing. Luckily, Mom had her bank card, and we put some gas in the car to head out. I was beginning to think, "Geez, if this is any indication of how this evening is going to go, we're in serious trouble!"
The race started at 11:45, but we arrived down at the river around 11:00. Yeah, let me just say that this is not the best area of town to be in at that hour, but at least we weren't alone. I made Mom hang out in the car until about fifteen minutes before the race started, so we could take advantage of the seat warmers (thank you, Toyota), and the box of Sweet-Tarts that I needed to consume in order to stay awake. Honestly, it wasn't that cold-- we've run in far worse extremes, but I guess the whole thought of the late hour just made us anticipate that it would be so much colder for some reason. Thankfully, there wasn't an ounce of wind. You all know how much I hate the wind (my mortal enemy).
The gun went off, and off we went, along with what seemed like a million other insane people. It was pretty slow to start at first, because the trail was so narrow, and there were people weaving all over the place, which made things a bit tedious. I'm so used to cycling, where people know and respect the rules of the road. They use manners-- no cutting people off, stopping right in front of you without warning, or zig-zagging around like lunatics. Nope, in cycling, people use etiquette and I like it. It also didn't help that it was dark in some stretches, and you had to watch your step for fear of random debris or dips in the pavement. After awhile, the runners thinned out and we headed across the river.
So, there we were, jogging in the dark, when at midnight, the power plant sirens began going off across the river, the lights on the trail went out, and they started shooting off fireworks. Pretty cool. At the turn-around point, they had a tent set up where they were handing out champagne. I have to say there aren't too many races where you see that. Not as cool as Zach pulling the baby bike trailer full of booze for the MS150, but still pretty darn cool.
Shortly before the half-way point, I got a bit of a cramp up under my ribs, which normally ends up killing my run altogether. Luckily, a swig of beer gave me enough juice to belch most of it out. So lady-like, right? By the time we were heading back over the river, the remainder of the bubble passed down into my abdomen, and was pretty uncomfortable, but I was determined to finish anyway. By golly, if I was going to be out running at midnight, there was no way I wasn't going to finish!
We crossed the finish line at 36:28, which was less than a minute slower than my Jingle Bell Run time. I was pretty pleased with that, considering how s-l-o-w things got started this time around, and with the cramp and all. My goal is to finish a race at 30:00 or under sometime soon. Providing it isn't too hilly or crowded, I'm sure I could probably do it. Anyway, we hunted down some more champagne (or should I say, Mom did-- you guys know I rarely drink), and it was back to the lovely seat warmers in the car!
I finally crashed a little before 2:00, but my merciless kids had me up entirely too early this morning. My knotted-up calves barely allowed me to walk down the hall to take them downstairs to breakfast, but that quickly wore off. Now I am off to spend my New Year's doing laundry and stripping the Christmas tree. Good times!
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