Around The Bay - 09 - Jody's Random Thoughts and Mutterings

The race day was cold, rainy and windy..Jed lost my shirt and so I had to wrestle a XL women who took my shirt and I ended up crying like a girl but got the damn shirt...most of us got there at 8:10 and stayed in the bus until 9 ..then we got brave and went out...good ole Coach Bruce carried 4 ponchos to the start line (those friggin Lamb's- more on them later)... lost Arlen on the bus switchover and waited until the horn went and took off with no Arlen who trained with me but you know I can make conversation with a stump - not to mention beat the stump in a foot race and so I didn't care...friggin rain kept coming until about 5 km when I threw the poncho in the ditch...passed a slower runner stopping to have a beer at 7 km on the porch - wondered aloud why our club doesn't do that and remembered that Brian probably took my beer and by the time I was at 7 km he was done, showered and enjoying it...met the lovely and bundled up Jenny lamb at around 7-8 km and got jacked up with coke and beans (thank God we were away from the Fuzz standing at the intersection) and lumbered on.....passed the 10 km marker remembering when I was slightly fatter and would have sooooo enjoyed stopping there and chugged on...took the garbage bag out of pocket and threw it on to match several striking soaked (but still hot) runners around me...passed over the steel bridge running extra fast so I would slip, break my leg and then could stop- no luck,...under the 403 I think and it was friggin raining hard again and I was losing my stump like conversational skills but chugged on....met Jenny poo again (looking even more frozen at 16 km) took my 5th and 6th ibuprofens of the day (thank god they don't make slow guys pee in cups after) and chugged on.....met up with those lovely hills from 15 km on and am quite proud to say I ran up all of them without stopping and ate a lot of runners up in the process - Thank God for the Hungry Hills of Lucan (think that was a John Denver song in the 70's)....chugged on till I met my the Chosen One..a rather cramped looking dude who was really struggling..said he was not doing well and I strongly disagreed - this poor idiot not knowing who he was talking to -like I would know if he was running good- duh?... and he shared with me he had two gel packs left and only wanted one...(this is where the Chosen One thing comes in) I was quite pleased since I had thrown my jacket in the ditch by this time (along with last gel pack and a couple of soaked Cat-In-The-Hat pink striped mittens) and gladly swallowed that gooey goodness and felt quite revitalized, actually almost having a religious experience and chugged on...just in time for heartbreak hill and as I came up to it a very sweet young lady hollered in front of us "Love these hills!!! Woohoo!!" and then dropped dead or something like that...needless to say with all that was happening I almost did not notice Arnie and Jenny cheering us on and Jenny looked more surprised then me saying "Oh my Jody - *you do* look like your doing good" and I sucked it up and passed 90% of the field on that hill walking to get out on the flat for the last time....I ramped up the speed now (the stump was starting to gain on me) and caught up with Len Niewland who was looking solid...seeing the 28 km sign and the ambulance I started to feel better and as I streaked down the slippery slope into Copps needlessly risking injury for myself and others I knew I could do this...as I ran through the last time stop I remembered why we do this...cuz it feels so great when we stop!!!!