And so, after a Friday night enjoying the great American pastime, we moved on to Saturday: race day!
Around 11:30 a.m. Friday, Barrett e-mailed me that I should register for this splash and dash running/tubing race he was covering Saturday, because he'd gotten permission to run it as well as cover it. My initial reaction was extreme laziness and reticence. Running is hard, and Saturdays are best spent laying around in bed.
BUT, the race did look fun, and after I successfully convinced Katrina to also join us (due to a suspicion I had that Barrett would not wait for me for the tubing section - later confirmed), we quickly registered as the minutes ticked down to the noon deadline.
So, in the late afternoon Saturday, after still getting in a quality amount of lying on my bed doing nothing, I headed downtown for the James River Splash and Dash.
The race included about two miles of running, followed by probably a quarter mile of tubing - not really the toughest endeavor ever. When the organizers explained the course though, it seemed uncomfortably confusing and I began to worry that I would die. Plus, as mentioned, running is hard.
Still, Barrett, Katrina and I were so prepared to show that race who was boss. Bow down to our toughness:
This picture was initially super giant when I pasted it, but I thought that would intimidate you too much.
After Wave 1, aka the wave of people who are actually good at running, set off, we steeled ourselves for go time. I promised Katrina I'd wait for her at the tubing section, and although I mentioned to Barrett that it would be nice of him to do the same for me, it was not necessary. (Spoiler alert: he chose not to. But that's okay!...)
And then we were off! For the first quarter mile or so, I ran really fast, as I often do during races. I was all prepared to keep up with Barrett the whole time and crush everyone and be awesome. Then I remembered that I am slow and, say it with me now, running is hard.
So I fell back a bit and had to have my soul slowly crushed as runner after runner passed me. That was not the greatest.
After a seemingly interminable amount of time (I suspect 20 minutes at most), I left the trail section of the run and headed towards the beach where the tubes were stored. Unsurprisingly, no one was there waiting for me. But I hung out until Katrina arrived, and together we set out for the tubing section.
And then I cheated, but not on purpose! We were supposed to go out around this buoy upriver from the launch point before floating with the current down to the return spot. I forgot about the buoy until it was too late, and found myself sitting helplessly in my tube, floating downriver, trying to paddle against the current slowly until Katrina actually completed the course and caught up to me.
Perhaps as karmic punishment, shortly after she caught me I floated into a bunch of reeds. It was not great.
In this photo, Katrina has rescued me from the reeds and is pulling me down the river. Teamwork!
Once we freed ourselves from the tubes and headed up the super steep beach, I expected to immediately start running along like a character from Chariots of Fire, and was shocked to find that moving my legs seemed super, super difficult. So I gingerly walked up the stairs before working myself up to a brisk jog (Jogging is the worst, Chris!).
Someone (it might have been Clark Kent) who had finished the race several minutes before, then came walking back toward me and dared challenge me to a race to the finish, and once again, I set out at a powerful sprint, only to receive my last and final reminder that running is hard.
Still, I finished, and it was awesome, and then we went and ate dinner al fresco (summertime experience number three!) and drank beer.
Tomorrow: walking is, amazingly, also hard.
I LOVE Chariots of Fire.
ReplyDelete