A Thousand Times No

The saga of my first Broad Street Run.  Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Afterwards:

I grab a finisher’s medal and throw it around my neck.

Then I immediately pull out my phone to determine the whereabouts of my friend, The G.

“I just finished!  I made it!” I blurt out when he picks up the phone.  “Where are you?”

“I’m sitting at home.  It’s dry here,” he chuckles.  Naturally, the parking lot attendant never showed up.

Battling a calf injury, knowing the forecast called for certain rain, and unable to locate anyone who could help protect his credit card, The G had waited for nearly two hours before heading home.  He managed to turn on the television just in time to see the final battle between the top two race finishers.

As I am speaking with The G on the phone, I pass a table with a large pile of water bottles.  I grab one.  Then I pass another table with boxes full of Philadelphia soft pretzels.  Pretzels that have been sitting out in the rain for several minutes.  People snap them up like hotcakes.

I know I’m still keeping it together when I take a complete pass on the Nasty Chow.

I step up onto a curb.  My thigh immediately raises an objection.  Still chatting on the phone with The G, I find a relatively dry spot under a large shade tree and start to stretch my legs out.

Once my legs feel a little better, I head to the main tent to pick up an official food bag.  I see people walking around with different kinds of fruit.  Turns out the food bags are all mix-n-match, with some type of fruit, some type of candy, some type of salty snack, and some type of fruit bar.

I peek inside a couple of bags until I spot one with the prize combo: Dark chocolate Peanut Chews and a snack pack of cheese curls.  Really, you should just hang a sign on me now:  “Will work for cheezy poufs!”

I snarf down my snacks and keep stretching out while resting underneath the porch of one of the buildings in the Navy Yard.  Eventually, I walk to the where the gear buses are parked, relieved that I will not have to battle a line to retrieve my bag.

When I locate my bus, it’s completely empty.

“They took away all the rest of the bags,” the driver says, directing me to the bag tent.

When I arrive at the bag tent, my bag is nowhere in sight.  Crap.  I spent way too much quality time with those cheese curls.  Nobody seems to know where my bag might be.

I head back towards the parking lot, where I see several volunteers walking towards me, laden with armfuls of bags.  As I had hoped, I spot my bright yellow bag from several yards away, profusely thanking the man who is carrying it.

Then I hop on another bus that is shuttling people to the subway station.  As soon as I sit down, I throw open my bag and started layering up my clothing again: I zip up my vest, pull on my arm warmers, and toss on my hooded jacket.  And I count my blessings that I did not show up in a trash bag, now that the temperature has dropped and a damp chill is in the air.  Once again, my vanity has saved my hide.

When I finally arrive home, I check my official time online.  My chip time does in fact register at just below 108 minutes.  To my surprise, my clock time comes in under 109 minutes, the result of a new method of calculating times based upon the corral release rather than the starting gun.  Both times are under my stated goal of one hour and fifty minutes.

When my brain stops cramping and I do the math, I am also pleased to learn that I managed to eke out a 10:33 final mile.  Perhaps my pacing wasn’t so hopeless after all.

And yes, my knees are still holding up.