My Thanksgiving 5K

On Thanksgiving morning, I ran a 5K. Not far, really. Especially when everybody else in my family runs, heck, I don't know, like 750K's or something. Anyhow, I promised a friend of mine I'd run it with him. This Thanksgiving season was unseasonably cold. I was hoping desperately the weather would break Thanksgiving morning. I checked the weather, and kept hoping to see temperatures in the low 90's possibly. I was disappointed to wake up and find temperatures in the range of, according to the more reputable weather sources, 600 degrees below zero.

Not wanting to die, I started the race wearing a pair of bike shorts, a T-shirt, a pair of thermal underwear, a pair of thermal underwear, some thermals, a cashmere sweater (they're warm), some thermal underwear, six pairs of gloves, a beanie, a construction hat, two pairs of ski goggles, a ski mask (because they look awesome, mostly), a down jacket, two pairs of snow pants, 17 more beanies, an electric blanket and generator, and a sub-arctic-tested 30-degree-below-down-insulated-expedition-level-sleeping bag. I couldn't technically see or hear the starting gun, but I knew we started because I could feel the pavement just slightly as I hit it, and felt the faint pressure of hundreds of feet pounding atop my back through my layers. About fifteen minutes into the race, after the winners finished (wearing--literally--speedos), I finally managed to stand. Or at least I thought I was standing. I couldn't really tell. After the fire department removed my outer 23 layers, I was able to see well enough to run. I was still at the starting line. By then, we were at the 30 minute mark. Most of the strollers had crossed the line, as had most of the 2-year-and-under age category and even the small goldfish category. So eventually, I emerged, like a small, skinny, half-naked caterpillar from a big, thick, nylon-covered, down-insulated cocoon. I tried to run the rest of the race in my bike shorts. I say "tried" because I had been sweating so bad inside there that my sweat instantly froze into a 1-inch thick shell around my body and I couldn't budge. By then, I had progressed six inches, and my elapsed time was a whopping 47 minutes. At that rate, it goes without saying that I didn't do so hot on the race, but it I gave it the ol' college try, as they say.

In reality, I finished in 25 minutes. 8 minute miles. I would have felt awesome about it, except I was too busy feeling like I'd just about died, and was so hot in my arctic explorer suit I had to immediately rip all of it off (I still wore shorts and a fleece vest and a T-shirt and a beanie) in order to keep from throwing up, or (embarrassingly) dieing.

Other than that, I was pretty excited, and really, it was an accomplishment, and really helped me feel qualified to eat a heck of a lot of Thanksgiving food.