Crying in the Rain

When we arose yesterday morning, we were excited and ready to go for our 10K race in The Central Park as part of our half-thon training program (which we made up ourselves, so it's nothing official or even practical, but that's ok). Instead of looking out of the window, we instead relied on people's facebook updates to inform us that it was in fact raining, and then checked the weather on the internets only to learn that it was in fact raining and would continue to do so all morning. "We can deal with a little rain," we told ourselves as we put on a cap and some water-resistant outer layers.

Well not only was it raining, but it was in fact freezing as well, but we were compelled to continue on to the start at the southwest corner of the park b/c all these people from our neighborhood were also en route (you can always pick out the race go-ers on the UES on weekend mornings, they have the same look on their face as we do -- the one that says, "this seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it, but I would really rather be in bed"). Anyway, we get on the cross-town bus and make it to the registration booth, near which, soaked bagpipers were playing tunes in honor of the "Scotland" theme of the race, which we guess someone took a little too far given the conditions. After standing in mud to get our free t-shirt, we honestly thought long and hard about going home and back to bed now that we had received our swag, but we ran into some friends who told us that they would laugh at us if we did that and who pointed out that we were already soaked, so who cares. We caved, and proceeded to run the 10K, looking absolutely ridiculous with a free Scotland themed poncho on, but ended up not feeling all that bad about it.

Except when the "cool down" period began and we were litterally shivering, and then picked up our bag which was now soaked and covered in mud, and the color of which bled into our new Scotland Run t-shirt, which is unsalvageable now. Also, we are sure the pneumonia is setting in about now, despite our taking 2 Airbornes and 1 Emergen-C's yesterday, but that is the price one must pay, we guess, to be able to update their "status updates" about how athletic, and thus desireable, they are.

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