It's part of Olympia's annual Lakefair celebration. I emailed Ed that there was a race coming up on Saturday at 8:00.
He replied: "Let's do it. Please get the mowing and watering done. I can get some things done Saturday take a shower, eat and leave at 6:00. Sound good?"
No, no, that would be 8:00 in the morning!
We should have left at seven in the morning, but at seven he was in the shower. At 7:25 when we finally pulled out a light came on over his head, that 8:00 was when the race starts, not when we should be looking for a place to park! And he's usually the punctual one!
Actually the half marathon started at 7:00, the 8k at 8:00 and the 3k at 8:10.
He made up a few minutes on the way over there, but it was 7:54 when we took the Port of Olympia exit, and Ed told the boys they'd better get ready to miss it.
Poor little guys... sitting in the back seat, with their running clothes on and shoes carefully tied in double knots.
I said Legion would be faster, but Legion turned out to have a great ferris wheel in the middle of it. The next street was blocked for the race; we got a distant glimpse of the herd of 8k runners starting off at 8:00.
The next street was one-way. Ed drove as close as State would get and let the boys and me off in the middle of the street. We cut across in front of traffic which obligingly slowed for us, and RAN.
I couldn't get my purse strap straightened out so I carried it by one corner and went top speed, heels in the air, with the boys trailing me. I have the advantage of longer legs!
The next street had a lot of runners gathered. I asked several of them where the registration table was, and got not a glance in response. They all had their crowd blinders on. This is not a moment for politeness-- I grabbed some lady by the bicep and yelled, WHERE IS REGISTRATION??! and she pointed me back towards the park.
We sprinted down there across the grass to the grandstand, found the table. Thank goodness for online registration. They had envelopes all ready to go, just had to find the boys' names. The lady handed them to us and said, "Run!" We ran.
She called after us, "The chip trackers have to go on the shoes!"
Whose bright idea was it to put the starting line four blocks away from registration? We ran two more blocks, then emptied the envelopes onto the sidewalk, sorted it out and started getting numbers pinned on shirts. The tracker had a diagram on it showing how to thread it into the shoelaces before tying. I untied Dave's shoe and threaded the thing on as fast as I could. Mike did his own and asked me if it was okay.
It looked okay from the hasty glance I took.
I told Dave to stuff all the junk back into the envelopes while I pinned Mike's number on, then we RAN up the street to the starting line. The official said three minutes to the start.
We made it. Whew. I can relax and take pictures now.
Then Mike tells me the tracker has fallen off his shoe!!!!
I told him to watch for me as he went by and if I found it I'd hand it to him. More running! Of course since the street was blocked off we had veered at will from sidewalk to street and back again, which gave me a lot more area to cover when I ran back to search.
I found it a block and a half back, then RAN back to the starting line. I told Mike to just carry it in his hand.
They had started counting down, 10, 9, 8...
I got a video of the start, then once the whole herd had gone down the street, I wandered to the privacy of the nearest low-hanging tree and burst into tears.
I heard somebody say, "She's got some kind of pain".
Yeah, but it's okay, it's just the pain of being alive.
I'm not a morning person! I have to get up slowly, and play with my computer for two hours before I'm fully awake and can start doing any kind of work. If I ignore that and start burning my engines too early, I'll be zonked out and needing a nap by noon. Or I can sprint in my flipflops for ten minutes at 8:00 am, and there you see the results being commented on by the general public.
At least I had sunglasses in my purse, so I didn't have to endure any further remark once my act was back together.
Ed found a parking spot and walked over with the girls, in time to see the boys run down the street.
The 3k went all the way around Capitol Lake and back, to a huge red arch with FINISH on it, very classy.
Dave was the 4th kid to come in and still going strong. It was exciting to see him so soon!
Mike came a few minutes later and was working hard. With those big shoulders and that taper he's getting on him, he's a magnificent little guy but not a runner!
I saw them give him a funny look when he just dropped his chip into the basket after carrying it in his hand the whole way.
It turns out the trackers really have to be on the shoes. The time is recorded automatically by those blue strips and they can't read the chip when it's that far away. But, I was able to find out Mike's time by looking up the number of the runner right behind him.
They had slices of watermelon, pastries, vitamin water, energy bars for the finishers. Very well set up event, I must say, with all the closing of the streets and the ribbons and all the officials, though I would like to comment on the four blocks between the registration table and the starting line!
I was still breathing heavily fifteen minutes later. When it was time to walk to the van my poor old knees were turning into mush, and my leg muscles hurt so much I could hardly walk. Ed kept turning around to wait for me and wonder why I wasn't keeping up. The next day my legs hurt so much it was all I could do not to yelp every time I had to walk up the stairs.
What a wuss! Well, it's nice to know that in case of tsunami, Godzilla, etc, my "run for your life" range is basically twelve blocks. Any further and I'll just fall over and die.
