Alright, let's start this off where I thought I would be gushing. This is my in my positively neon outfit for this morning's 10k. Huck and I signed up for the Run for Your Momma 5k/10k in the 10k division, obviously. If you can tell behind me, the ground is a bit sandy, the joys of running in Wilmington, NC. We came to his parents' place for Mother's Day and they live close by, so we figured we'd support a great cause (domestic abuse shelters), get a good run in, PR on a stupidly flat course, and originally, I thought my recent UNC-W alum cousin could run with us. She smartly declined, given the state of her liver last night and I'm thinking tonight, too!
Instead, what happened was the most frustrating thing to ever happen during a race. Huck and I realized the field was small enough, we could legitimately place in our age groups, so I told him to go run his race, I'd run mine. After about the first half mile, thanks to all the turns on neighborhood streets, I'd lost Huck and most of the field. There was one woman hanging out around me, so we chatted for about 2 miles, and got through a water and Gatorade stop.
The numerous turns were easy to get through for the most part thanks to volunteers explaining just where we went since their little spray painted wooden stakes didn't match up with where the people were directing us. No big, right?
Until we got to a turn where the volunteer had his top half in a van, explaining where they needed to go to avoid road closures. We kept going on the road we turned down since we could see another white shirted person and runners on the street beyond that guy. Except... that white shirted man was watering his lawn and hadn't seen any runners pass by him, and the people running in front of us were 5k-ers. Cursed baby jogger people that only do 5ks actually came in handy!
Our little trio turned around, ran up the main street we'd gone past and knew went to the finish/start line. People were cheering us on because we were the first 10kers to come through!...yeah, we crossed over the other set of timing stuff, yelled at the race director "WE GOT LOST!" He told us "its those headphones! You can't hear the directions!"
Yeah... I run with one earbud in when I'm on the sidewalks, so a race that forces me onto 2 lane roads through neighborhoods? You bed I'm keeping an ear out (literally) for cars and I guess "directions", but, as the Roomie said "audio cues?! What is this, Hunger Games?! No booming voice from above!"
It took me so much self control to not just tell the race director where he could shove my earbuds, so our lost trio turned around and just headed out the way we'd come. We decided we'd just add enough mileage to get to 6.2 and say "to hell with the course."
This strategy meant there were no more water breaks, volunteers looked at us like we were crazy, and my favorite? When, after seeing Huck at the top of my mini-hill (like up 20 feet when my big hill is up 100), I knew something was seriously up. I told the volunteer that wanted me to run down a street to a FLIPPING CONE to shut the crap up, I'd gotten lost and didn't give a crap any more, so for the first (and last?!) time ever, I beat Huck across the finish line.
When every 10k runner got to talking, we realized nobody did the "right" course. What the race director had told us about running on trails? Never happened. Huck's GPS said he ran 6.5, I did 5.95 on my hacked course, volunteers were far away from injured parties, etc. One runner even said when this same group put on a half marathon, there were 3 water stops. After I survived my half, I was thankful for practically all 8 water stops! My 10 miler had 4 water stops... Huck and I were spitting mad, so we left to go meet my cousin for breakfast and said screw the awards. We didn't run the course, so why the crap does it matter if we got awards for our hacking?
Worst. Race. EVER....and I've run some inaugural races and evil courses before!
What made my day better? When we went back to Huck's house, there was Cerra with her 7 puppies:
We're pretttty sure Huck's male dog is the father. He's black, just like 5 of the pups!
See those precious little pups?! They were born on Wednesday, so these Friday night pictures are of literally 2 day old babies. They're squirmy and whiny and soooo adorable! Momma dog just lays there and accepts her duty as a milkmaid.
But the best part?
Those are my two favorite men!
Wiley Mew is about 4 weeks old and his teenage mom had two of her kittens die and sort of gave up on this one, so he was placed in my arms by Huck's parents and it was instant love. Given that Huck has two big dogs that aren't used to cats, much less kittens, and my roomie is allergic to cats, I figured I'd just be surrogate mom for the weekend.
Until... we got back from the race today and for the 2nd straight hour, Wiley wasn't more than 5 feet away from me, a streak that's mostly been kept up all night, even when I was eating sushi for lunch, and Huck said "so... this can happen ONLY if you take care of it, clean the litter box, get it food, take it to the vet...but...because I trust you, we can take him home if you want." I had this tiny thing in my lap, so I couldn't do the same dance I did after a company said "yeah, we'll be making you an offer for a full time position in the Raleigh area this week, or maybe early next week" aka SUUUUUUUUPPPPPER EXCITED!
Yeah, I think I'm going to like this...
Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd (and Wiley)
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