Although this is unrelated to my normal blog posts I felt like I wanted to share a quick story about my trip to Memphis to allow all of those who saw my Facebook post to get the whole story to my accidental 10K and any other casual readers would at least get a better understanding of what an a** I can make of myself on ocassion (or all the time).
This trip was planned when my college roommate, another close college friend (Shout out Marie and Valerie) and I decided to have a girls weekend. My college roommate just got an super awesome post-doc job at St.Jude's in Memphis. Since she had just recently moved and Memphis was about 1/2 way between Fort Worth and Kent we decided to meet up in Memphis. At some point someone suggested that there was a 5K/10K going on the Saturday we were going to be in town and we should run it together. I should first explain I am not a runner and have actually despised the idea of running until very recently, but I didn't want to be the one to say no so I said yes and started training.
Well after 3 months of training I was ready to head to Memphis and run my first 5K. We got up Saturday morning and headed towards the affluent eastern Memphis suburb of Bartlett, TN. We get there, check in, get our goodie bags and run them out to the car. As we are walking back to where the 5K is supposed to start is where the trouble begins. They announce the 5K will start in 5 minutes and runners start lining up at the starting line. I take stock of my bladder and decide that I need to quickly use the restroom before I begin my over 3 mile run. I sprint towards the restroom and wait behind 3 slightly pokey women. The entire time I am in the restroom I don't hear and horns, cap guns, or any other indication that the race has started. I sprint out of the restroom and see people lined up at the race start. I think "yeah I haven't missed it" and I look for my friends. I don't see them so I get in the pack assuming I will run into them at some point.
A horn is blown and off I go, feeling pretty good about my pace with the rest of the crowd. After about 1/2 a mile I realize two things. One, I still haven't seen my friends and two I see a sign on the road that says 10K and a arrow. I then of course realize that I have started the race with the 10K runners (which was supposed to start 5 minutes after the 5K and is on a completely different path). I now have two choices, quit (which almost instantly is not an option) or keep going. I kind of hoped that at some point the 5K track would intersect with the 10K one and I can get back in with my peoples, however by mile 3 I realize that is not going to happen. Now I know I'm in it for the long run (literally) and I have no clue how long my run has taken and how long it will take to get done. Right around mile 5.5 I get a call from my friends wondering what happened to me. I quickly explain the situation and let them know I'll get there as soon as I can. After passing the 6 mile mark I see the end at a distance and know I have a little speed left in me. In the end I finished in 1 hour 14 minutes and 23 seconds, a respectable finish for someone who never intended on running a 10K.
Running was so much fun and even though I ended up super sore it was a great experience. I plan on running 5 and 10K's again in the future, just this time I will make sure I use the bathroom well before the start of the race
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| Me (with my first bib but before my run) |
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