(#24) Run Montecito-Summerland – Part 2 (Fighting To Be Not-Last)

July 22, 2012

Picking up from yesterday

I napped in the car for about an hour until it was time to line up to start. I jumped out of car/bed about 5 minutes before the race began. I have an amazing ability (read: irresponsibly tendency to never hydrate enough) to never have to go to the bathroom. But, I’ve been getting thirstier during races, so I made a real effort today to drink a lot of water beforehand.

Sure enough, I had to use the bathroom, but didn’t give myself enough time to do it. Oh well. Like we always used to say in high school when someone didn’t give themselves enough time to pee before a performance, “Use that having-to-pee energy – focus it into making your performance better.” (Sorry for using the word “pee” on the blog. I feel as though that’s kind of a weird word, right? Yuck.

I didn’t realize how small the field was going to be today.  My main goal for this race became to just to not come in last. I lightly jogged the beginning. I was around 4 other women (2 different pairs) toward the back.

Every time the pair of women behind me sped up, I’d speed up just enough to stay in front of them. I already felt like a jerk for doing that, but I was wearing my shirt with my blog url on the back. So, if it’s not bad enough that I kept speeding up based on their pace, they could see my name the whole time. (And possibly curse it under their breath. Who knows?)

I happened upon the first water station before the first mile was even up. I thought that was pretty cool of this race to put one so early.

About 2 something miles in, I saw a gas station, ran in and used the bathroom, then ran back out. It turns out that the women who probably hated me had been doing the 10k, so they had turned off onto a different path. The other pair of women were somewhat far ahead of me. But they were still in my sight. So I ran. I’m not talking about the word “running” that I throw around pretty loosely when really I’m just jogging. I took off.

And I caught them. I was pretty winded and my heart was thumping, but I caught them!
We had a lovely conversation. Kathleen is doing a half marathon every month! And Meagan was doing her first half! Eventually, I ran ahead. I wanted to stop intruding on their time together (and I wanted to pushing myself a little harder for part of the race).

I pumped up the jams and jogged away. Songs from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee came on first. I always get excited when a song from that show comes on shuffle – It’s my favorite musical of all time. Hands down. I’ve seen it 21 times, but would’ve been happy to have see it 2,100. Jesse Tyler Ferguson is possibly the most talented actor in the universe.

Then, “I Wanna Be a Producer” came on. I will never get over how great that song is. I think it’s possibly the ultimate “I Want” song from a musical. Then I started to think about how I am going to get to see Jesse Tyler Ferguson on stage again (this Friday!). He’s playing Leo Bloom in The Producers at the Hollywood Bowl. I could not be more excited! (Trust me, I’m sure you’re gonna get an earful about it on Friday night.) (Just yet another thing to be thankful for in my “thankfulness theme” of this race.)

While we’re back on that thankful note – “Falling for the First Time” (an awesome Barenaked Ladies song) came on my iPod. When I heard the line “I’m so thrilled to finally be failing,” I had a moment when I thought about how awesome it is to be immersing myself in something I really love and care about, again – to get to be acting every week and falling flat on my face sometimes (most of the time) in classes at the Groundlings.

I spent too much time in my recent past distracted with basic needs for life, as opposed to the important things that make up said life. How great is it to to be so in love with something that failing really matters. (Aw, man. You thought you could make it out of a post without hearing about improv again. So close! Sorry, maybe next time!)

I know I’m a little overly thankful. There was just something about this race. It was just a beautiful day to be alive!

I’ll pick up here for the end of the race tomorrow.

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