Marathon 5k ... is that an oxymoron?

I ran in the Windsor Green Half Marathon last weekend but I didn't qualify for the hat or shirt because I didn't register for the race until the day before. It's important to have a hat or shirt because when you wear it you feel better than other people. Which you are, because you were in a marathon. So what if you only ran the 5K (3.1 miles for all the Americans unable to grasp metrics). It sounds like a really big deal anyway, doesn't it? Try it out:

"Ya, I ran the 5K this weekend. What did you do? What's that? Oh, you went to the Outlet Mall? Well good for you."
See, doesn't that sound superior?

On the up-side of registering late, I got a reduced entrance fee of only $35 plus a pancake breakfast served by the Windsor Fire Department. Naturally it was important for the Fire Department to pose in a picture with me. They are trying to improve their public image. After much begging, I acquiesced. "Just one picture, fella."

I was running with my friend Kelly who pushed her infant in a stroller while her kindergartner held on to a strap attached to the handle. "Walkers on the right!" I'd yell at the crowd of wanderers spread out like lost cats on the course. The ones that heard me moved over and looked at me with a sort of terror and some said "Oh, thank you. I'm sorry." I have quite an air of authority, but that all comes from being tall and bossy.

About halfway through the 5k, Kelly's son was running serpentine and I had my head turned for just a second when whafamm! I tripped up the little guy and he went down like a flying squirrel on a low branch, all spread out and trying to grasp at nothing. Schlice! went his little kindergarten knees on the concrete. So I quickly picked him up by the armpits and screamed "You almost made me fall!" No, just kidding. We scooped him up and, to his credit, he didn't even cry. I almost did though. We kept cheering him on and telling him how awesome he was. "Next year I'm running the 10k!" he proclaimed.

Meanwhile, we passed an angry mom and her son. She was whining in her best awful mom voice "Come on! I Want to Finish This Race!" and I thought she was the worst motivational speaker ever.

When you run to the finish line, no matter what, you feel like a winner because, if for no other reason, you finished something today. I can't say the same for the breakfast. I couldn't finish it because Kelly's husband Roy held up the sausage and said "You could run the whole course and burn off this one sausage." True. I ate the eggs.

Thanks in part to Thomas and his Body Mechanical know-how I finished 10th in my age group! Outstanding result considering I spent a good amount of time tripping little children, handling traffic control issues, and contemplating the vast superiority of Kelly's mothering skills compared to the rest of these chicks.

I took some pictures for Blogger Queen that I thought you'd enjoy. This one is my favorite. Here's an innocent woman trying to get off the grass and I'm such a big asshole that I thought it would be a pretty funny picture. I'm the shadow standing there unapologetically.

The Best Part of the Race: Kelly picked a hat up off the ground and said "looks like someone lost their hat." I grabbed it and happily put it on my head. "This one fits just right" said Goldilocks. I only felt a tiny drip of guilt. It wasn't until I wrote this post and looked at this poor lady's picture that I realized exactly where that hat came from. See it? It's laying there on the ground, right next to the shadow of my head. It seems that the destiny of this hat was to be on my head. If she ever sees this post, I'm in trouble.