Picking up from yesterday –
Just as I was about to the final bit – At the white barriers that lead you into the finish line, I heard “I hear we have our last finisher coming in!” – about the person right in front of the race vehicle (the race vehicle driven by the woman who’s mad at me – all other race vehicles are still tailing me).
Oh my gosh. I am SO close! I can literally see the finish. I bet I can get in before the timing mat comes up…
Then, just as I’m about to pass the guys pulling up the “New Orleans 2017 sticker off the ground” (like, I am SO ridiculously close at this point), a woman’s like “you gotta get out of here”
She’s very firm about it, basically literally blocking my path with her body telling me I can’t be in there.
And I’m thinking “wow, they were not kidding about that forfeit thing. I *barely* didn’t beat the van and they are cloooosing down the finish line”
But then the guys taking up the sticker (and someone else by the barrier) are all like “she’s fine. She’s fine.”
And so I say thanks and start to move forward, but the woman’s like “you can’t go that way!”
And then I’m asking how I leave the barriers (still hoping to figure out a way to run over the timing mat before they take it up). And it’s very confusing ’cause I’m getting down to crawl out from the barriers and keep moving forward. But she seems to be suggesting I turn around and leave the area completely, just not going toward the finish.
And I don’t 100% understand why she’s acting like not only closing down the finish line, but not letting a runner go anywhere near it would be totally normal and not frustrating for a runner… Like, she seems to not understand why I want to keep going forward… So, it’s this whole bru-ha-ha of confusion that no one really understands is happening until…
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!