Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye.
Next year I want to go, but I probably don’t want to run it.
How many times on this very blog do I need to learn that when you have an opportunity to do something, you jump on it (before that lesson is engrained and never messed up again!)?
Far and away the main reason I wanted to run this race is because Lance Bass was the host. Lance. Bass. (I am a humongous *Nsync fan!)
I figured if I ran it, I could probably meet him. Well, here’s the thing. I made the assumption that as the host, he’d stick around and be there when people came in.
I envisioned it like the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathons – where Annie sends everybody off and she’s there to high-five you when you come back, keeping the energy up at the finish line the whole time.
Well, I was sorely mistaken.
Another lesson in life – you never make assumptions! I have heard that a million times. But part of the problem is that sometimes I’m making an assumption when I don’t realize I am. I thought I just knew how half marathon hosting worked. I didn’t realize it fell into the assumption category until I saw he wasn’t there at the finish…
It was free to register for this race if you did it far enough in advance. I didn’t. So, I had to pay $10. However, when I got there, as far as I could tell, the people behind the table weren’t checking any papers or collecting any money for late registrations. You just went up there signed a waiver and got a shirt and bib.
There were no timing chips, so that’s why no one at the desk needed to be concerned with whether anything matched up.
(Also, even though I saw I could’ve totally gotten in without paying $10 online, if I’d just showed up that morning, I was fine to do it ’cause the money went to The Trevor Project.)
After I got my bib and t-shirt (which I’m amazed we got either for free or practically for free, since the stuff was nice), I went searching for Lance Bass.
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.