Secure With His Manhood and Other Race Day Tales

For the third year in a row I walked in the Cooper River Bridge Run...with 43,999 other people.   Now the race is a 10k [for those of you not into the racing lingo then let me 'splain - that is 6.2 miles....over a ginormous bridge....that I paid to trudge over] but I think we [being my sister and several other friends] actually ended up walking about 10 miles by the end of the race.  You see, the cities of Charleston and Mount Pleasant are not that big so they had great difficulty handling these extra 44,000 so we had to walk a country mile [or five but who's counting?] to actually get to the start of the race.  Seriously, we ended up on a side street at the mile mark of the race route.  Several of the following thoughts ran through my head at this moment:
1. I could hang here and just "join" the race after mile 1.
2. I could hang in one of those 44,000 Port-O-John's located in the area. [However, considering I absolutely HATE public restrooms and these stinky boxes o'poo classify as one step close to death so that idea left as quickly as it came into my sick, twisted head.]
3. I could walk back to the car, stretch out and sleep while everyone else drags themselves over the Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge.
4. Just stop whining you big baby.
According to my aching calves, "Unfortunately, number 4 won out." 

The race officials corralled us [yes, like animals] into sections according to our letters on our race bibs.  The ultra racers [aka Kenyans, Ethopians, and Crazies] wereway in the front - like about 3/4 of a mile from the point where people like me were standing to begin the race.  What letter was I?  [I thought you'd never ask!]  I was in corral  J - which actually stands for, "Jesus just let me get over this bridge without dying!"  You think I am kidding but I actually had a long talk with the good Lord about a lot of things while I waited the TWO hours for the race to begin.  I had my iPod in the whole time, sort of oblivious to everyone around me when I turn around to Gene Simmons dressed as a skeleton or, as I affectionately coined him, Scary Man with Spandex Suit.  I was a little embarrassed over the fact that I didn't wash my hair on Saturday morning and this man was bearing it all for Charleston to see.  Is it sad that I actually wanted to see him run in that suit? 

Once the race began [sometime Sunday morning I think] I knew that the only reason I wanted to finish was to get an orange.  Yes, an orange.  Bi-Lo is a major sponsor of the bridge run and they always have these huge, delicious oranges after the race.  My plan was to conquer this bridge [if by conquer you simply mean get over it before work on Monday morning without dying] so that I could get an orange.  I started praying, jamming to my iPod, and thinking about those oranges.  I didn't stop, not one time, because I wanted an orange [plus, I knew if I stopped then someone would be carrying me over that bridge].  The race ended [and I was still breathing and with a pulse], my 3 hour [the majority spent waiting for the race to begin...I'm not that slow] prayer time came to an end with me thanking God for the ability to walk 6.2 miles, and my quest to secure an orange began.  I saw people with oranges, I saw loads of orange peels, and I could smell the oranges.  I made it to the Bi-Lo table o' food to find......NO MORE ORANGES!!  What?  I want my money back!!!  No only were all the oranges gone but the bananas were also gone and the only muffins left were lemon poppy seed [which might as well be sand in a muffin - those seeds are nasty].  At that moment I realized that I was incredibly thirsty and guess what?  NO MORE WATER!  Are you kidding me?  What was worse was the fact that there were MANY people wandering around who DID NOT run/walk/saunter/sprint or even think about the bridge run and they were carrying ORANGES and WATER!!  I will be honest, at this point, after walking 2 miles to the "corral", being subjected to seeing Gene "Spandex" Simmons, booking it for 6.2 miles, then walking another 1/2 mile to find oranges and water only to find them rouged by greedy non-racers I was really considering hitting someone. 

After meeting up with folks riding back with us we got on the buses that would take us back to Summer's car.  Another false claim like the oranges and water....that bus clearly passed right by where we parked [which was a mere TWO miles from the starting point] and kept on going.  I am fairly certain, when it stopped, we walked from Jacksonville, FL back to our car.  Holy cow Batman!  Seriously, when a person just walked all that way, from one town to the next, up a huge bridge, loses out on oranges, and then has to walk 14 miles back to their car they can be slightly ill...glad that wasn't me.  We got lucky ~ the part of our group that finished way before me had made it to their car, called us, and took us back to our car. 

All in all, [even though the orange thing didn't go as planned], I still had quite the adventure.  I spent some quality time with my little sister.  We rarely have the opportunity to hang out together so it was great fun.  She took me to P.F.Chang's for dinner on Saturday night and it was really good.  We laughed, talked, and laughed some more.  I love my sister ♥

It's always nice to go out of town but I was happy to get home to see the Shorties :)  As always, life is good ♥