Saturday was the annual Jingle Bell 5K Walk/10K Run for the Arthritis Foundation.  I’m a charitable person, and do little events and volunteer things when I can.  I figured even though I feel like crap all of the time know, I can suck it up and walk a 5k.   I had decided to go the fund raising route, and managed to raise $150, which is nice.  (I donated $50 of my own money, so don’t be that impressed with my fund raising skills!)

So, the morning of the race I wake up at my college BFF’s house 15 minutes until the 9 am start time.  Whoops!  She overslept, and her guest bedroom alarm clock never went off.  SO Seinfield, right?  I stayed the night there purposely because she lives like five minutes away from the starting line.  I drive like hell, and get there just in time to see the start of the race, as I had to park about two miles away to park.  The first volunteer I encounter tells me, “Oh, its too late, sorry!” and walks away from me, busily texting on her cell phone.  I wander around another five minutes looking for registration staff who can help me.  None can, as they are all unorganized, and some just walk away from me.  Seriously!  Fifteen minutes and five volunteers later, I walk away with a handmade ghetto race number, as mine was missing, even though I had told the race chair person I was picking it up day off.  Of course, the first number they assigned me was already given to someone else.  I start the race at 9:20 am, in the freezing cold, no breakfast, no water, and most importantly no Coke flowing through my veins.  As I cross the start line some idiot old man yells in my face “What?  Its already started!”  and I yell back “Oh, well they took TWENTY minutes to find me a number!” in true Madison Heights ghetto fashion.  I was pissed.

Just as I’m starting all of the 10K runners pass me, and I knew at that moment that I’d finish dead last.  I knew it, and it pissed me off.  I’ve always wanted to run a marathon or a race, but as a teenager I had a bunch of weird phobias, one was having people see me run.  Seriously.  I had the longest legs and tons of endurance as a teen.  And I was  lean.  I once did an entire 15 mile walkathon in bare feet on a dare.  I knew in my heart that I could have been a good long distance runner, and at MSU I’d run at like 6 am on Friday mornings when I knew NO ONE would be out, as Thursday night was the big bar night.  I was that closet of a runner.  So, race day, all of this is going through my mind as I see runner after runner breeze past me.  I have a few friends that run, and I always wanted to join them, but now that I’m in the leg braces and have daily nausea, dizziness, headaches, chest pain and shortness of breath, I can barely walk a mile without stopping.  I knew that I’d never check running in a race of my list, so of course I was crying like a baby.  Thank god no one saw me, because I’m UGLY when I cry.  Especially since I was in a Santa hat.

All of the race workers ignored me until mile two, when I encountered a decent soul who yelled out “We have a shopper!”  I was also carrying my goodie bag, so this made me smile.  They next person at mile three kept yelling “Nice Waling” and I had to smile and yell back, “And I’m rocking these leg braces!”  We had a good laugh together.  Because I was, I was walking so fast because I was PISSED that I had to start late, and FRUSTRATED that I had to walk alone, as my hubby was at work and my girl was at her cheer leading competition.

I finished, dead last, at 10:20 am, exactly one hour later.  Not bad, but not fabulous, either.  I make my way into the school, where everyone had polished off almost all of the free food.  I managed to find a 1/2 banana and a warm hot chocolate when I noticed the prizes being awarded.  Sure enough, my name was called, as being the 2nd best runner in the 35-40 female age group.  I know there was no way that I took the silver, but I went up on stage and took that metal like the ghetto bitch I am, because I froze my ass off, my foot and leg hurt like hell, and I noticed that only one other person in that gym was disabled.  And I thought to myself, I’m taking this for all the times in life I should have won something but didn’t.  I don’t know how they thought I came in second, or if there were only a few people my age in the race or what, but that is the only medal, ribbon or prize I’ve ever won, and its mine!

On my way out I ran into these two little fellas, who were in remote controlled dog cars.  Funny and an instant pick me up.  Who doesn’t love a dog in a costume driving a car?