Picking up from yesterday,
So, I’m jogging along. All of a sudden, a big dog comes running down the field of runners!
What?
The owner is nowhere in sight! There is no leash hanging off the dog, leading me to think it’s not like the dog just accidentally got away from the owner. Where is the owner of this scary brown dog?
So, this dog is coming. (I assume to eat us all, of course.) I book it to the nearest human and grab onto this man’s arm for dear life.
The dog just ran past us, and everybody lived. Just barely, obviously. My heart was going about 300 beats a minute. I apologized to the man, and walked on, doing my best to calm my heart and myself. (It was really, really scary!)
About a mile and a half later, my heart rate was still only just starting to come down. That’s when I met Darcy and Lisa and recounted the frightening tale.
We became fast friends and talked for the next few miles.
The race was pretty scenic. As I was driving there, I thought about how funny it is that, living (and running) in California, I’m to the point where I’m a little sick of seeing the coast. However, something about being in the race made it a much prettier sight. It’s a nice view.
The one lame thing (besides a leash-less dog!) about this otherwise amazing race was that they rerouted us at the end! We didn’t even get to see mile marker 12 (which was especially a bummer since the mile markers were so super cute – also because I love mile markers as aids to keep me encouraged and aware of where I am).
I came in under the time limit and was on pace to do so the whole time (meaning I should not have been rerouted). As I’ve said before, I don’t like when races say you have a certain amount of time, but then don’t really give you that amount of time. I realize I’m very slow. If it’s too slow for you, just put an earlier time limit on your website.
Also, obviously, I need to work and speed (and will do so next year) so this is never an issue. But even if I get to the point where it’s never an issue for me, there are still other people in the world – other newbies, other people who do it completely as a hobby just to get off the couch and not to have PRs and things, etc.
Even if I’m running Boston someday, I care about all the new people to the sport. You want them to love it and want to come back. Anyway, let me just step off that timing soapbox of today.
I forgot that one of the reasons I signed up for this race was because it had a cool medal that looked different from most, so I was stoked about my new, interesting medal.
They also served soup, which I thought was a pretty rad thing to do. It was Minestrone. I’ve never had it, but it was a big word and I just decided not to go over and try it.
I saw some people I’d met at the expo. One person came up to me and said that he’d checked out my blog and that what I was doing meant a lot to him. He said, “That man I was with yesterday – he was my partner. I really appreciate what you’re doing for us.”
That really meant a lot to me. I certainly have a lot of people in my life who are affected by marriage equality. (Really, we are all affected because it affects the sort of world we live in.) But, you know, I have a lot of friends in the LGBT community who will be directly affected. It’s not as though I’ve completely forgotten the people for whom I’m running.
But sometimes, while running for a cause, an idea – a more tolerant world where all citizens are treated equally – I forget about the specific, individual people who struggle in a world where many view them as “less than.” To have a person come up and thank me for what I was doing, it just really touched my heart.
43 races down! Onto the Quadzuki next weekend!