5 K Fiasco
Two months ago I took up running. I don't know why. I opened the door and flew down the street one morning before the kids bolted out of bed. I didn't buy special running shoes. I didn't wear high tech nylon shorts with reflective stripes and a water bottle belt around my waist. I just took off, in pajamas and fake Converse sneakers, a cheap purple dog leash wound tight around my right hand. I ran as far as the lagoon, one quarter mile, then plopped into the sand and hacked up half a lung. My dog ignored me. She kept running, leapt into the lagoon, chased a ruffled egret through the brine. Hack, hack, hack, all the power to her, I thought. Maybe this ain't for me.
But I kept running, every morning for two months straight now. A quarter mile became one mile through the old Daley Ranch with its regurgitated surface waiting for stale new stucco homes, became two miles through budding strawberry fields where the police yelled at me through a loudspeaker attached to a squad car, became three, then four, now five miles along the sand crusted Pacific Coast Highway.
I still wear my pajamas - my Avon NASCAR pants cut off at the upper thigh and a tshirt that reads "Donuts: Best for Dinner," but I invested in actual running sneakers and took to carrying a squeeze water bottle I stole from my son's bike.
A few weeks ago I entered my first race, a local 5 K event held for a children's charity. I wasn't racing to win. I wore my kilt, figuring the ventilation would be welcome during my sprint to the finish. I stuffed all the pockets with as many sample packets taped to business cards as I could. And I left my running parter, Suzie, at home. No dogs allowed.
I arrived at the race with plenty of time to spare. I signed the release form, paid my twenty bucks, and was given a race number. 665.
"Uh, hey? Is there a number 666?" I had to know.
"No, ma'am. There isn't a 13 or a 1313, too. People won't race with those bad luck numbers." A woman with frizzy short hair and wiry muscles handed me my race t-shirt and a plastic bag filled with copied advertising and samples of trail mix and electrolyte drink mix as she answered my question. She wore a periwinkle sports bra and tiny black spandex shorts. The skin on her stomach was brown and wrinkled, the product of too many runs in the desert sun.
I pinned the number to my donut shirt and handed my race goodies to my son, 17. He took my things and looked at me with a critical eye. He reached into my purse and fished his hand through the pockets until he found a black pen.
"Mom. Lean forward."
I laughed as he changed my 5 to a 6. He filled it in carefully, fair skin already turning pink in the sun. "Perfect. You'll scare them away now, Mom."
I walked through the crowd handing out my Avon cards. I dropped them into race goodie bags when people weren't looking. I stood by the line of porta-potties, handing antibacterial lotion samples to people jogging in place.
"Attention, women runners! Your race will begin in ten minutes!" A cracking sound system boomed through the expo, and I left my Avon porta-pottie station and headed for the starting gate. Women of all ages and sizes stretched in the center of the street, pulling back feet to hamstrings, bending at the waist and touching toes. One women assumed the full lotus position, ankles crossed atop her knees, arms raised to the heavens. She wore a tank-top printed with the Hindu god, Ganesh, and I stood next to her for good luck.
"Hey, have a great race!" I smiled and stuck my hand out to shake Meditation Woman's hand. She stood and shook my hand, and I realized I towered over her by nearly a foot.
"I don't think it was smart to change your bib to that number." She nodded at my chest and her voice sounded disapproving and sad.
"Oh, my son did that for laughs. I read something in the news that the truly evil number is 616 anyway." I laughed, tried to remember where I heard that bit of information, but she didn't smile, inched away from me toward a group of super jock women in matching red running shorts.
And then we were off! I ran my usual pace, didn't try to be fast, didn't care that most of the women passed me by, I ran and thought about my kids, my pets, my race number. I wondered whether I should have worn my NASCAR shorts. Maybe racing car pants means fast legs, I pondered. A gentle breeze from the ocean wafted under my kilt and I decided I made the right decision. One mile in, I found myself keeping pace with an older woman wearing an iPod. I could hear the music through her earbuds, some kind of fusion jazz. She turned her head to smile, saw my race number and sprinted ahead.
At the halfway point, volunteers stood in the road and handed us glasses of cool water. I stopped, drank six cups in a row, and dumped the rest of my samples on the aid station table. A soccer mom pouring water into cups looked at my race number and frowned. She pushed my Avon samples across the table, into the trash. I was too winded to protest.
I crossed the finish line in just under half an hour, sucked down a free cup of Gatorade and stuffed a complimentary bagel in my back kilt pocket. Yay, me, I thought. Yay, me! The next day I checked my stats online to see where I placed. And there I was, flat at the bottom of my division, disqualified for messing with my race number.
Evil, indeed!
6:46:08 PM 
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