Been thinking about the race, mulling over some bits I left out.

Something I didn’t want to admit because it touches a self-conscious nerve, especially because there’s a thread going on about this in the Marathon Race Training forum…

Well, you know how I’ve been placing in some local races? I get a few rows back, but not too far, because in a non-chipped race it’s the gun that counts.

So this was a fast race runner-wise, faster than any I’ve been in, though I didn’t know it at the time. As one of the fastest local Masters said in his blog, he never found the course to be as fast as advertised, but the competition is. His 16:45 (the guy did a Half the preceding weekend) got him 44th place. There were 9 sub 15s, 15 sub 16s – and this with 623 finishers.

Anyway, getting back to my shame, Lara and I lined a good clump of rows back, there were women in front of me that looked like they had a plan, and enough who didn’t behind me, so that’s pretty much how we ended up.

The gun goes off and with it a time lag before movement is even possible. Within a second or two some big guy, I’d say in his 50s, comes charging from the back and hits me outright, knocking me sideways into some people (as he does everyone in his path), yelling angrily about getting out of his way.

Lara, who was until that point, next to me, was oblivious to what happened, and while I’m falling, the runners he pushes me into get mad, thinking I’m just carelessly barreling ahead. I’m apologizing while scrambling to right myself, then have to surge to get back up next to Lara. It was really fucked up.

I mean, truth be told, I felt really really bad, like I’d totally messed with this guys race and therein lies my shame. However! Why did he stand so far back? There was a good clump ahead of us and no one was able to move before he came charging through. Then again, I should have known this was a fast race and gone farther back myself. But yet, I did not need to be hit, the guy was an asshole. Good cop, bad cop. Aaargh.

All I know is, that’s a really shitty way to start a race – tense and panicky. And as I’m writing this, I’m beginning to put two and two together, because I’m remembering my arms. Throughout the race, my arms felt incredibly heavy. I carried so much tension in them that they actually hurt and I shook them out a couple times. That’s a new one on me – usually it’s my jaw and shoulders. I think the breathing thing relaxed my upper body so I transferred the tension to my arms, that or I was still in defense mode from being pushed. It was weird.

So that was the negative thing that happened. On a good note (besides the fun time I had overall), I did not once feel like puking, which I usually do near the end of a race. Also, the horrendously ugly green tech shirts they gave us (which, as usual, are in mens sizes so way too big for most women…why must they do that?) was diminished by the fact that Brooks was there giving away free black tech shirts (cute ones!) that came in XS, so I got a wearable shirt out of it after all.

Then the other cool thing was that Lara informed me that we need to do Powerball because the jackpot was $275 million. So when we get back to Philly, we go to this neat place called “Check Cashing.”

If you’ve never been in a Check Cashing store, yes, they are as disgusting as you imagine; smoky, wads of trash on the floor, miscreants everywhere and you know it’s a house of addiction when the lady behind the bullet-proof window giving out the tickets is, at the same time, filling out her own lottery cards. I mean, she’s there the whole damn day. Must be an expensive job.

But anyway, we got our tickets then went next door to the huge Asian market that recently opened where, at Lara’s advice, I bought some White Rabbits, yummy asian candy that I can only hope are not laced with battery acid or antifreeze or whatever the Chinese are exporting in food these days.

So there you have it, a little fleshing out of the day. Oh, and for the record, neither of us won Powerball – but there’s always a next time.

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