I'd Rather Run For Beer

I don't know what possessed me to do this, perhaps I had read a recent issue of Shape or Glamour or some other women-unite-and-take-charge-of-your-life-by-setting-an-utterly-meaningless-goal type magazine, but a few months ago I signed up for a local "Fun Run" fundraiser for the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy - an organization that purchases and maintains open space in my little pocket of southern California and whose trails I regularly meander along. Mind you, I signed up a few months ago while I must have been in a physical fitness frenzy and thinking it would somehow be fun and meaningful to join 150 other people on a Saturday morning and run around on a trail with a number pinned to my chest. I have learned my lesson...

Saturday was the big event. Check-in was at 8:00 a.m. - a time at which the most exercise I usually participate in is rolling over and stretching in bed with an occassional yawn thrown in as aerobic training. Luckily, the start was four miles from my house. Initially, I had a grandiose plan to rise early and ride my bike to the start. That plan was quashed by my repeated use of the snooze button on this particular morning. Once I finally arose there was barely enough time to lace up my sneakers and throw on some shorts before heading out.

Seeing as how Ojai is a small community I expected there to be between 20 and 30 people at the run, and had a glimmer of hope that I might, without any training for the event, win my age division. This thought was supported by the handmade signs (cardboard pieces with balck magic marker writing on them) leading to the 5k start as I headed toward the venue. You can image my dismay as I pulled up to the "fun run" to see people clad in lycra and high-tech materials doing high-kneed sprints up and down the road in preparation for what they were treating as a race. As I stood in the check-in line behind folks who munched Powerbars and drank sports drinks I listened to people discuss their race strategies, projected split times, and hopes for placement. I realized this was an event to which people came to compete - against themselves and eachother. Humbled by this realization, I headed over to a nearby rock to feign race-like behavior and mock the stretching antics of the other racers.

As I was contemplating skipping the race entirely, going home, and crawling back into my warm bed, a man who looked a lot like Howard Stern but with a shorter, poofy, curly mullet tamed only by a striped headband, offset by pimp-style sunglasses and velour highwater running pants approached me. For some reason he felt compelled to tell me about his plans for the race and how he would probably do better had he not been a pack-a-day smoker for 20 years back in the good old days. He then cackled to himself, spit a glob of phlegm on my rock, and headed to the race start. I noted that I should do everything in my power to stay either ahead of or far behind him, lest he exhibit such behavior on trail.

Within 20 minutes of my arrival about 150 people were gathered like sheep between a chute of little orange cones at the race start. A man with a bullhorn stood on a folding chair muttered something that sounded like an order at a drive-thru, waved a flag, and then a siren sounded. The mass of people took off as I stayed back to observe the scene. You see, the trails at this park are very narrow and it is for the most part through a river bottom that has lots of rocks and debris. As such, runners could only move along single file and there is not much room for passing and thus no need to rush.

Once the pack was actually moving I settled in behind two chatting women who informed me that they were on an 8-minute mile race pace. That sounded, and felt, fine to me so I trotted along single file behind them for approximately 8 minutes, at which point we saw the first mile marker and they abruptly stopped to walk. Apparantly they only intended to do one 8-minute mile and then walk the remainder of the trail. I opted to continue on and soon fell in with another single-file string of runners at the same rough pace.

I was again trotting along when I heard what I thought was someone gasping for air. Usually if you are running a gasper tends to fall back in the race and walk, but this man was gaining on me. He was heaving as if in the throes of an asthma attack and I was concerned for his health. Thinking it may be my Sternesgue phlegm-spewing friend, I turned to look at him. The sight nearly caused me to lose my balance. It was indeed a man, gasping and flailing in a unique running style, but to add to the style was the fact that he wore some vintage blue satin Dolphin running shorts. You remember those, right? Supertight and supershort, read: not for men? He must not have gotten the memo back in 1976. To make matters worse, he had large, pasty white legs covered in dark, curly hair sticking out from the satin shorts. So there he was, gulping air, flailing his arms and legs, making heaving sounds, all the while gaining ground on me. Then, he passed me. I was shocked, amazed, bewildered, and not sure what had just gone by and determined to pick up my own pace so I too surged ahead, chasing a heaving man in tight satin shorts. I couldn't keep up and settled in behind another runner who had no apparant maladies or strange tendencies.

We chugged along for another mile and a half when all of a sudden we reached a loop where the trail outward overlapped the trail coming in. So runners that were ahead were coming back on the same trails as we slower folks. This was a reality check as I realized there were tons of people far ahead of me and I had no hope of winning any age division. Then it happened, a young boy, probably about 10 years old, came zipping by in the opposite direction. I saw him approaching, looking spiffy in his matching running outfit, and I couldn't help but encourage him by saying "Good job" as he nodded at me. It was then that I realized I was one of millions of people in the middle of the pack at fun runs on that very Saturday in other towns - who don't run to win, or to prove anything, so I really had no reason to be there at all other than to finish.

And what an anti-climactic finish it was - someone took the number off my chest and gave me a t-shirt I will never wear, an unripe orange and a bottle of water.

In the end, I much prefer running around town in a costume chasing a beer truck...