Aurora's Blog

Continuing from yesterday –

In mile 9, I started slowing way down. The start time of this race was 8am. I thought that would make it torturous, getting warmer as we ran, but it rained! It rained. Then it rained some more. All was well with the world.

As much as I loved the cool rain… (sigh) Oh boy, this is the super sad part. I have these amazing pants. They’re the first pair of running pants I ever bought back in 2008! Think of how well they’ve held up. I have no idea what kind of amazing super strength material they are made of (it doesn’t say on the pants!), but I love them. Calvin Klein did an awesome, fabulous job making the perfect pants.

As you may have seen in some of the pictures, my pants are way too long for me. They go way over my shoes, and I have had FOUR YEARS to cut them. Yet, did I? No. Why didn’t I? I don’t know! I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I suppose I’m just an idiot.

During the race, they were getting completely soaked. As it kept raining, the bottoms got wetter and wetter. It was getting quite cold and uncomfortable to slosh around in all that extra fabric by my shoes. I kept sludging (not a real word, but I like it) forward until I reached mile marker 12. At that point I only had ONE mile left (.1). Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone?

I saw a medical tent and said, “hey, I don’t have any medical problem or emergency. But, do you have scissors I can use? My pants are driving me crazy.”

The very sweet medical personnel got out scissors and offered to cut my pants for me. I should’ve asked to do it myself, but the woman seemed to want to do it. (They don’t want to give the sharp things to runners, I guess, maybe. Or they just want to be helpful. I don’t know.)

I was very nervous, but also cold and tired. I sat down, and she cut off tons of extra fabric from my right pant leg. Then she proceeded to my left pant leg. I saw that she was cutting it a little higher than I would, but I don’t know if I was trying to be polite or what. By the time I said, “Oh, please not so high,” the damage had been done.

My right pant leg is now cut way too high. I ruined my favorite pair of pants in the world! I do not blame this woman at all. I 100% blame myself. Why didn’t I cut them earlier? Why didn’t I ask to be the one to use the scissors? Why didn’t I save the fabric before they threw it away to see if I could sew it back on later? Why wasn’t I patient enough to wait until after the race?

Why did I even wear these pants?! That morning, while still in my I love NY pajama pants, I thought to myself, “This is so comfortable. Maybe I should just wear these.” I really, really thought about it.

Then I thought, “No. I’d rather wear the best pants in the universe.” And now they’re ruined! Conceivably I can still wear them, especially on the treadmill where it doesn’t matter. But outdoors, my legs will be exposed to the sun. I won’t look as cute anymore. I am super crazy bummed about these pants.

In fact, when I got back to the hotel I may or may not have shed a couple of tears about these pants. If you think it’s a little over the top to cry about pants, you have never worn this style in the Calvin Klein Performance line.

Of course, now I can’t find them anywhere because they are these 4-year-old pants that aren’t sold anywhere. I’m worried I’ll never have a good pair of racing pants ever again.

Obviously, I’m too distraught to talk about anything else now, so I’ll finish out the story of the race tomorrow.