From the Horse's Mouth

Before you hear it from anyone else... here's how it went down. If the details start boring you, skip to the last three paragraphs titled "SUMMARY".

I decided to stay up late with some friends that were camping out on University Avenue for the 4th of July parade. It was games, food, fun, etc... I got into bed at around 2 am (hey at least I didn't pull an all-nighter like my friends), and set my alarm for the 7 am 10K run.

I didn't hear my alarm go off at 6:15 (and every 10 minutes after that -- snooze feature), nor did I hear Callie call me at 6:37 am to see where I was.

Luckily my body naturally woke me up at 7:09 am. My heart sunk. I got myself over to Kiwanis Park as quickly as I could and started running at the 10K start line. I didn't get my mark for starting time because they had already moved the electronic pad, so I knew my time was already botched. I thought I could at least finish the race for my own sake. Fortunately I had seen the route on the internet and knew where to go (generally).

Pretty soon I met hundreds of 5K runners going the opposite direction. Some of their comments indicated that they thought I had already finished the race and was going backwards for fun. I found a couple of people that I knew who said hello. If the fact that I wasn't going the same direction as the 5K-ers wasn't obvious enough, I finally reached Center Street and confirmed the true direction for the 10K (I saw a 10K runner going toward Seven Peaks).

At this point I decided to NOT run the rest of the 10K backwards (meaning my friends on University Avenue would be looking for me in vain), so I turned around and headed toward the finish line. Before I reached Kiwanis Park again, I decided to turn around and look for Callie. After 1 or 2 laps going up and down 9th East, I found her and yelled out to her, but she didn't hear me as she was listening to an iPod.

I ran a half a block more, then turned around to catch up to her. When she saw me, you should have seen her face. I caught her walking, and she immediately started running again. We ran the last half-mile together and this time I actually crossed the finish line. Some people realized I was a 10K runner by my number and shouted out praises for finishing so quickly (...oops).

I learned later that Callie wondered if I had actually caught up to her, and I'd like to think that this inspired her to run faster at the end of the race. This, of course, is far from the truth. I would have had to run a 4-minute mile to be able to catch her, twice my current pace.

SUMMARY:
I didn't wake up on time and started running 22 minutes late, ran BACKWARDS, DIDN'T run past my friends on University Avenue, FALSELY inspired Callie and other runners, ran only 2 miles of the total 6.4 miles, STILL got the shirt, water bottle, and fruit at the end (YES!).

Having run only one-third of the race, I consider myself only a partial failure. The only good thing that came of starting late was being able to run with Callie the last little bit and past the finish line. I am so proud of her! I don't have her exact time, but she finished in about 35 minutes. VERY good for your first 5K!

I heard there's another 5K next Saturday somewhere nearby that is free. I feel obligated to run it, and I think Callie might do it with me as well, so we'll see.