Yes, it sounded totally cool... a month before. Slightly less cool a week before... and then it just made me feel really, really old as I contemplated actually putting on my running clothes at 11:30 at night.
No, no... I'm young, I'm hip, I'm doing a 5k at midnight.
So, Ted's passed out (you know, he's a year older than me). The boys are passed out. Emma's wide awake. So I give her the remote and her phone and tell her to have a big time. It's the Friday night before school starts- I know, I know, I'm an incredibly responsible mom.
After killing a few hours that would have been better spent sleeping (and by sleeping I mean watching Chelsea Handler while eating Ritz crackers and peanut butter), I drove over to the Y. It's all of a mile away from my house.
Guess what? It's still incredibly hot. Heat index 103 hot. Great.
I pick up my packet. The t-shirt is sort of cute, but not run at midnight cute. The glowstick is a nice touch- it's a bracelet. Instead of bibs they wrote your number on your hand. I probably should tell them to go the tri route next time and do the arm. My bulging tendons made it hard for the director to write my number on my hand- note to self "hands are looking old." Nice confidence booster.
So I walk to my car with my goody bag. I just got a haircut, so I decided to leave the hat behind (and sunglasses- d'oh! this feels weird!) I try jogging a bit and realize that even with drinking water and sitting around during the day, I'm still really tired. I'm feeling more uncoordinated than usual- think it's because my body wants to be asleep.
OH, and there were tons of people with little kids in the park- so weird! There were a lot of people at the race- I guess they all liked the novelty too. I'm rather smug about the fact that I don't have my children playing on swings at midnight until I remember I left my 10 year old in charge of her two brothers. (Hey, she knew she could wake up Ted if she needed him!)
Race starts. I'm exhausted, but I charge up the big hill by the hospital- good plan! Yeah, so that hurt. I'm wheezing and I can't see my Garmin. I downloaded a new playlist for the race- yeah, Bare Naked Ladies "Who Needs Sleep?" not nearly as clever at midnight. The race was supposed to be lit. Well, you could see in the sense that you probably weren't going to trip, but the disembodied barking of invisible dogs was extremely disturbing. I assumed any dog that loud must be behind a fence or it would have already eaten someone in front of me, but I didn't like not being able to see them coming.
Mile two. Still haven't recovered from the crazy fast first mile, or the exhaustion, or the humidity. I hang on by following a guy in front of me. He doesn't know it but he's dragging me in. We pass a few people on a bit of a downhill.
I see a group of men in front of me. I pass a couple of them and then realize one in front is Ron. Ron and I always finish near each other, trading the lead. I really wanted to pass him just so I could say "hi" and annoy him, but the more I thought about it, it sounded like a whole lot of trouble- have to turn the music off, have to take the headphones out, have to run a lot faster. He could have this one. (I was also distracted by my sudden hatred of James Brown and his mocking tone- NO, I do not feel good!)
And the finish. Down a long hill. It's 26:00. I was surprised because the effort seemed the same as a faster race, but there were so many horrible variables that it was okay. Finishing sort of near Ron made me think it was a pretty good race. And I was too tired to really care. I think my card said 30th finisher. There were about 135 people in the race.
This lovely picture kind of sums up the finish.
I stuck around for the age group awards because I thought I was the 4th or 5th girl across. Hello, should always read the fine print on the registration. Awards were by DECADE and only for first. C'est la vie.
In the meantime, the humidity increased to the point that there was tons of thunder and some lightning. Emma started texting me like crazy- "I hear thunder. R U OK?" and my favorite- "baby awake! Hurry!" followed by "baby being good. ok." I gave her my shirt for being my race support.
So, that's it. I'm going to put midnight races in the same category as bridge runs or those dreadful tour things. Novelty runs that I don't really have to do again. Nothing against the race- it was well organized and attended and generally a good race, but it was at frigging midnight. Enough said.
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