Rough Race

My sister, in her enthusiasm for my continuing athletic participation (which often seems to exceed my own enthusiasm), called me prior to our trip to ask if I would like to participate in a 5K race for the Fourth of July. There was also a kids' 1-mile race, so she signed up the 4-year-old cousins as well.

My back has been gradually aggravating me more and more through this trip and I have to say I have NOT had the training time (or motivation) necessary to make any kind of improvement in this race over previous ones.

We had to drive a fair ways to get to the race, had challenges finding parking, and then had to walk quite a ways to get to the packet pickup area. My husband decides that he would like to run in the stroller dash, which started 15 minutes after my race, so he registered. We got everyone all organized, set out a space for ourselves on the sidewalk, and waiting for the race to start.

since it was already hot and I had no delusions about improvement, I started at a slow jog. Immediately my back started hurting and I figured I'd try to just work through it, hopefully loosening up as I went.

I think I made it maybe a mile before I had to walk. The hot knife pain in my lower back was severe enough I debated turning around and just going back, but forced myself to try and keep up a good walking pace.

Then the first stroller racer passed me. Granted, the guy was going fast, but I had a 15-minute head start and I hadn't even passed the halfway mark. Another stroller.

The third stroller to pass me was my husband.

Okay, so he's in WAY better shape and can run three miles in just over the time it takes me to run one mile.

Still. Depressing.

I continued to waddle along in my this-is-as-fast-as-I-can-go-shut-up-and-leave-me-alone-I-hurt walk. I haven't yet mentioned this, but immediately following the race, there was to be a huge parade on the same route. People were lining up in chairs and staking out space. No big deal, right? Lots of people there to encourage.

Wrong.

Since I was, again, one of the stragglers in the race, all the soon-to-be-parade-spectators were all over the race course. There were no officials or tape or signs or anything preventing them from blocking the road. I wasn't even one of the last people as there were a lot of walkers, but having to ask people to please move so I could finish my race and then being treated rudely like *I* was the one doing something wrong really ticked me off.

I was so sore by time I got to the finish that I was planning on just heading back to the car as I couldn't find my husband and daughter anyway. However, I really didn't want to miss her race, and I did get to cheer her across the finish line. It was awhile though before I saw her cousin come around. He's taller, has longer legs, and truly, is just simply faster than her, but apparently today he didn't feel like participating. My daughter was so proud that she beat him and kept repeating it to me.

I have to admit, that even though it was probably just because she was excited to run and he was too hot to care and just wanted to be somewhere else, I was proud of her and happy for her, although we had numerous chats about how it is not nice to keep telling your cousin you beat him. I reminded her that Auntie beat me significantly, so it balances out.

After the race, I went ahead and walked back to the car. I was not feeling well with the heat and I was pretty hungry. I had a snack and just as I was finishing, my husband called and asked if I wanted to go out to lunch with my sister and her family, so we went and grabbed some not-quite-Mexican food.

The plan was to go to this "great surf spot" and let my sister, her husband, and my husband go surfing. I was NOT looking forward to this. Between my back hurting, having sat on the beach and watched the kids for several days in a row and being out of reading materials again, I was actually rather annoyed.

We pull in to the state park, which actually had a long line stretching back down the highway with people waiting to get in. Once inside, we discovered they only take cash for parking, and we only had our debit cards on us, so I pulled out to leave. My sister, who'd driven in first, had left her cell phone in my car, so we couldn't reach her. My husband insisted that I wait for her and when she pulled up behind us, we hit a new plan.

I'd leave my husband and his surf gear with them and take my sleeping-in-the-back-seat daughter back to my sister's house--I had a key and a pass for the security gate, so I could get in.

My sister was SO WORRIED that I would be upset at not getting to stay at the beach. Here's where the disconnect comes in. I didn't want to go. I was tired of getting sun/windburnt, sitting in the heat, in pain, out of reading materials, and I was tired of all the sand in and on my car. After I assured everyone about twenty times that really, truly I was fine, I happily went back to my sister's house. My daughter even stayed asleep as I transferred her from the car to the bedroom.

When everyone got back several hours later, I had to again assure them that I was fine about coming back, actually I'd preferred it, they still couldn't seem to believe me. The guys got started on the barbeque and I began packing, which was actually quite an ordeal as 1) we'd bought a suitcase in San Diego and had to figure out how to cram that into the car and 2) my husband hadn't packed anything and I needed to load in his larger bags before I could start packing all of the small stuff in the car.

At 9:00, when I was running around in near panic because the car wasn't loaded and I was pretty much stuck on getting anything else done, they started teasing me, which didn't help my stress levels. I knew what had to be done, I knew I needed a good night's rest with a 16-17 hour drive for tomorrow, the rest factor was diminishing by the minute, and still hadn't eaten, nor was I watching the fireworks.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day no matter what.