How fast can a hot grumpy person with unhappy innards run a 5K? The answer to that question was shaping up to be "not very fast." "Let's run up this little hill to the sidewalk!" I said to myself. "...or maybe a walk break is a better idea," replied myself to me. "What we're going to do here is run 6 minutes, walk 1," I said to myself. "You know, 3 is the new 6," I distinctly heard in reply. I was approaching the halfway point and losing steam in a big way when I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was my roommate Shelley.
I was totally baffled about where she had come from. She had a faster swim leg than I did (as did several sea monkeys and a dead caterpillar propelled by the froth) and I knew I hadn't passed her on the bike leg. And yet there she was! It was so good to see her! Shelley is a faster runner than I am, and I expected that she would say a quick hello and speed off toward the finish. But she didn't. She said, "A walk break sounds great." When I said, "I don't want to slow you down," she shook her head. She said, "I know what I can do, and what I can't do, and I'd rather finish with you than finish alone." So we chugged along together.
You'd think I would know by now that running with a calmer person is good medicine for my brain weasels, but somehow I was surprised again by how well it works. Even though most of our conversations these days happen via email or text, the cadence of Shelley's voice is still so familiar to me from the years that we lived together. She didn't expect me to respond (which is good, because my conversational gambits would have been limited to "hot very hot sweaty tired CRABBY need a porta-potty now HOT dumb idea hot"); she just kept talking steadily. She thanked all of the volunteers, she chatted with the runners who said they liked our shirts (in big letters on the back: "Nevertheless, they persisted"), and she offered opinions about race etiquette.
I can't say the time raced by, but it definitely sped up beyond the arthritic trudge it had been doing before she came along. We passed the spot where I met Bad Cop Julie last year, and I could hear her voice in my head. We passed the spot where Joe joined me last year, and I ran a little faster remembering his encouragement. Soon we could hear people yelling for us -- our cheering section had camped out near the 3-mile marker. We sped up for the final tenth of a mile and finished with identical times.
I've already registered for next year. So has Shelley.
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