Move Over, Katie Holmes

So Katie Holmes ran the NYC Marathon, good for her. I tend to try to avoid activities with the potential to either make my toe nails fall off or make me poop my pants.  Both hazards of distance marathon running, I’ve been told. 

However, this past weekend, Miguel’s workplace hosted a “Let’s be all healthy and shit” 5 K.  Since Miguel has been running and getting in shape, he was totally game for it, and I am all for supporting healthy behavior on his part, so I agreed to participate as well.

Now, I didn’t get all crazy or anything, I agreed to WALK the 3.1 mile course. I generally avoid running unless someone is chasing me. With a big knife.  So early Saturday morning, we got all bundled up in our gear and set off for the race.  We even got cute little numbers to pin on our shirts, just like a real race.  The runners set off first, then about 10 minutes later, they let us walkers loose.  Since Miguel’s still fairly new to workplace, and none of his department was there, I didn’t know anybody to walk with.  Sad day.  So I put on some MCR and trotted off with my bad, angry, rebellious teenager self. 

I learned something very important that day…5 Ks are mother fucking boring.  The longest I usually walk the dog is about 2 miles on a good day and that extra mile just about killed me.  Not because it was physically taxing or anything, but because it was freaking boring.  And also, boring.  The race course was through industrial park-type areas, so there wasn’t anything to look at.  And without the dog to wrangle, there wasn’t anything to do but walk, walk, walk.  I actually jogged three stretches towards the end just to get it over with.  That is some boring shit.  I can not imagine doing it for TWENTY-SIX miles in a marathon.  Of course, during a marathon, you are probably busy trying not to die. 

Miguel placed third in the runners, which is pretty impressive as 1. a lot of them looked like the “I run 5 miles a day” type and 2. we had been up drinking till late the night before with friends from out of town.  For my part, I was shocked to learn I came in third of the women walkers.  I feel kind of bad since I jogged a bit, but oh well.  We both got $30 gift certificates to a local running store. Yay! New gym shoes for me!