Running Into Walls

This coming weekend, I'm participating in the Little Rock Color Run. It's an untimed 5K run with "no winners or prizes, but runners are showered with colored powder at stations along the run." People pay money to run in their local to look like a box of melted crayons. Just one of the many reasons why the terrorists hate us for our western decadence.

But in all seriousness, it should be an experience. Whether or not I survive it will determine if it's a good one. The event itself would likely be more appealing if I ran with the same regularity that I eat breakfast (though in the past week that ratio's been 1:1).

I've never been a runner. My best mile time was 9:30 in high school and, while I prided myself on the fact that I was one of the few people in the "recreational" PE class to run the entirety of the mile, I knew the only reason why I did it wasn't strictly for my health. I thought the running would make me more attractive to the ladies in spite of everything I did in high school to impede my chances with them. Then apathy with a dash of reality set in and I stopped giving a damn about running the mile. Or kept giving just enough of a damn to not earn a zero one week when we ran the mile.

We went running yesterday around our neighborhood which, except for a select stretch of the main road that goes through it, would make for a stupendous topographical map. Divert from that main road and you're either tumbling down a hill or struggling up another. So we stayed along the main road. Sam says I kept a good pace, and I think she was right--it felt like a good pace. And then my body selectively remembered that I hadn't done this in a while and thought it would take it easy after four blocks. Or three. A few of those blocks are occupied by a big park so it's hard to really gauge distance in so vague a term as a "block."

My body had already ached from work the day before. It was my first time running the projectors and closing, and the former required a lot of movement on my part since the only other employee was a guy that had just started that previous Wednesday. All in all, he's got concessions down, but we had a rough start which required me to help both with concessions and take care of the projectors. Kneeling, standing, running up stairs, fetching cold beers, and kicking a plastic desk chair took a lot out of me. I slept well that night, though.

We ran a mile, I think: one-half to and from a certain point. And I think I ran most of it, or at least half of it. Sam was patient with me, more than I deserved because I get irritable from physical exertion. That, or I was irritable because I hadn't eaten yet that day. So Saturday, we run and cake ourselves in clouds of color. Surely it's nontoxic color, right?