This won't hurt a bit...

Sunday was a great day for me. Really, a super-awesome-better-than-I-thought day. Sunday I woke up at 5AM to be at the Vienna metro at 6AM to be at the Pentagon at 7AM for an 8AM race. And it.was.awesome.

The highlights:

Mile 0 - 1

• The fact that from moment of the literal cannon-boom start to my actual crossing of the start line took 12 minutes is pretty damned impressive. 24,000 people are a lot to move. It was a nice warm-up walk, though.
• The funny shirt that said, "If you can read this - I'm not last". I appreciated the sentiment.
• The older man (60+) who was wearing a lycra, red and blue tie-dye body suit. And horror of horrors, it did so very little for his old-man-no-ass-edness. He passed me, thankfully, and I saw him no more.

Mile 1-2

• Nothing entertaining at all. This is the mile that hurts the most. It's when your body says -- wait, wait, wait. We're actually doing this? Why not veer over there and get a Starbucks instead?
• Although, this was where I saw the first few iPods streaming past me. Bastards!

Mile 2-3

• The Betrothed's sister (with husband) walked from their house a few blocks away to this mile marker just to scream as obnoxiously as possible for the 10 seconds I was in view. She was so wonderfully obnoxious that other runners turned to look at her -- and then to me. It was awesome. You can't buy fan-support like that.
• The Army pep band playing the theme from Rocky.
• Diagnosing a developmental, physical disability in the runner in front of us. My nursing school pal {seen below in red} (hereafter: NSP) and I noticed this gentleman, normal in every aspect, was only running on his toes -- his heels never hit. She says, "I know that condition. They usually have a big round belly, too. Be right back." She jogged up to him, stared at his front-side and then jogged back and said, "Nah, he doesn't have it. "

Mile 3-4

• Running between the Kennedy Center and the Potomac there was an apparent unofficial potty-stop where runners were darting off the road to the bushes there to drain their weasels. Seriously. 50 runners, shoulder to shoulder, all taking their own leaks while 23,950 of their closest pals ran past them. The comraderie moved me. If I had the ability (or at least had practiced prior) to pee standing up, I would have been right there with them.
• NSP and I then held a serious conversation about lab values of the diabetes glucose test: A1C.
• Then we ran through the sprinklers at the Kennedy Center.
• This is probably, I assume, when the Betrothed and BFF peaced-out of the start/finish area at the Pentagon to hit a breakfast buffet in Crystal City. "What else were we going to do for 2 hours? We were hungry."

Mile 4-5

• Another, this time surprising, show of the Betrothed's sister (with husband)-- who darted across the course to see me again. With a new group of surrounding runners to startle, she screamed my name louder than I think it had ever been uttered. She is also one of those persons who can do the "two fingers in the mouth" whistle that must be a inborn trait. I try, but I just spit all over myself.
• NSP applauded a crowed member for a grammatically correct sign. "You're all doing GREAT!" it said. We welcomed the praise, but spent the rest of the mile commenting on how people mis-punctuate/mis-contract words so often these days.

Mile 5-6

• Another Army pep band playing "Yeah" by Usher. Yes. I said it. A 5 piece, Army brass band is playing "Yeah" as if it were elevator music. I couldn't help but grove a little.
• NSP asked for some fellow-student advice on a project she was working on. We discussed pleural effusions and the nursing implications therein. Then we discussed the nursing implications for persons involved in a 10-mile race. Though you'd have to be a nursing student to understand it, it was pretty entertaining.
• This leg of the race also saw the return of the front-end runners along the other side of the street before their turn to the 14th Street Bridge. Here, many funny comments were exchanged back and forth -- mostly from our slower side to the more dedicated and not-so-talkative faster runners of the bunch. "Save us some water, ok?" was a favorite.

Mile 6-7

• I realized here that when I safety pinned a pouch onto the inside of my shorts to hold my gum and engery gel -- that I had saftey-pinned THROUGH an energy gel pouch and had spent the last 6 miles spooging sticky, gooey energy gel into my unders and down my leg. My immediate response was, "{expletive}, NSP, it's all sticky in my pants now!", which surprised the young Army-gent handing me a paper cup of water. "I think he liked that", NSP said. NSP also made a funny, though explicit comment about how energy-gel in one's pants may not always be such a bad thing. Humor-taken.
• As we moved out of the water stop, a lady in the crowd yelled, "GO CATHY!" -- to which NSP said, "Now how does SHE know your name?" I looked at NSP and said, "It's on the front of my shirt." And so it was. My running-cousin told me that putting your name on the front of your shirt significantly increases the liklihood of more personalized-cheers from total strangers. Apparently, it's a pretty common practice.
• It was, sadly, at this point when NSP and I parted ways. A previoius injury came back to haunt NSP and I had to go-it alone.

Mile 7-8

• Here I found myself on the return part of the street and happily noting that there were still runners coming up to their 6 mile mark -- meaning I was not, by any stretch, last. On the double-back, the "Yeah" Army pep band was now playing "Eye of the Tiger". I wonder if they do weddings?
• And almost as if by grace, when I was starting to feel weak, a lady running near me started yelling repeatedly, "I can do all things in Christ who makes me strong!" And rather than roll my eyes as I am wont to do when there are loud, overtly relgious sayings being yelled near me, I instead took it to heart and felt more empowered to carry on.
• I also uttered my first "Hooah". Outloud. So people could hear it. An army-ish man near us yelled, "Great job, runners! HOOAH!" *silence, save the pitter patter of sneakers on pavement* "I said, HOOAH!" -- a few muttered responses. "HOOOAAHHHH!!!" -- whereupon I yelled, "HOOAH!" just so he'd stop. He did.

Mile 8-9

• The mile 8 water stop was particuarly entertaining. As water stops go, volunteers stand with their arms extended with cups of water or Gatorade. They call out what they have ("Water, water" "Gatorade, Gatorade"), and it is up to the discerning runner to grab what they'd prefer. NSP told me early on that the Gatorade tasted like ass, so I'd been more for the water. A fairly funny Army-guy held out his cups and said, "shot of bourbon, glass of beer". Which, right now, isn't funny. But after 8 miles, it's pretty damned hilarious. I'm confident he'd been calling out those jokes the whole race -- but I'm glad he continued to when I got there.
• It is a fact that the 14th Street bridge is the longest gotdamn bridge to have to run. I thought it would never end. Volunteers stationed on the bridge kept yelling, "You're on your last mile when you're over the bridge!" -- but the bridge went on for ages. I've driven this bridge a thousand times and never realized that it secretly must be at least 5 miles longer when run.
• However, it was on this bridge that I passed a man with one leg. He had a fake one, too, which gave him the "lower appendage" quota, but the fake one had a bouncy thing on the end. I realize this man lost a limb in the name of freedom, but com'on. Bouncy thing? Isn't that a little bit of an unfair advantage? In any event, I passed him because I felt that even with a bouncy thing, I ought not to have my two God-given legs be beaten by one leg+bouncy.

Mile 9-10

• Physically, I couldn't believe how good I felt. Nothing hurt (or at least I had ceased to notice that it had been hurting) and I could already hear the crowd back at the Pentagon finish line.
• As I rounded the corner into the Pentagon parking lot, slews of already-finished runners lined the sides cheering and yelling "less than 100 yards!" I scanned the crowd anxiously for my BFF and my Betrothed. Luckily, I didn't have to scan too long. With the actual finish line in sight, I heard my BFF screaming and I saw my Betrothed's head popping out over the crowd. It literally brought tears to my eyes.
• I crossed the finish line at 2:07:25. Not too shabby for a self-trained, first timer.

This was an awesome race. In fact, I'm so glad I didn't have an iPod with me or I would have missed all the heartfelt cheering and silly bands. There was so much friendliness and good will among the runners that it ceased to be an intimidating event from the moment I got on the metro with every other runner that morning.

The last few days have been spent popping pills and coming to terms with my love affair with Flex-All cream. But it's a good hurt. So good, in fact, that there is talk of the Rock N Roll Half Marathon -- 13.1 miles -- in January in Phoenix (what?! Have running shoes, will travel?). And another next September in Virginia Beach.

So, anyone wanna train with me?