Run for your death!

This summer, I ran a 5k in Provo on the Fourth of July. I loved it. It was a great way to spend the holiday (especially since I had no roommates).

A month or so after the Fourth, one of my Facebook friends, Lynsey Mitchell, "liked" a link that was for a Halloween 5k. I thought I might have to do it if I was living at home for the fall.

Well, it turned out that I am living at home. In August, for the first time I noticed a sign in someone's yard advertising a Halloween 5k, "Night of the Running Dead." I figured it must have been the same one Lynsey liked. So I checked out the website, and debated doing it. The biggest hindrance was the price--$30! So I was debating whether or not I actually wanted to do it, especially since I would have no one else to go with.

This week at institute, Lynsey announced she was in charge of a 5k this very Saturday, a week before the "Running Dead" one. I thought I'd give it a look, since the other one was so expensive. I was glad when I found out that this one was also a Halloween one--"Run for Your Lives!" And it was only $12 (with a shirt!). So I decided to do it.

Since costumes were encouraged, I thought of the options that would be suitable for running. I decided I could get red and black running clothes and a cheap cape and be a vampire. So on Friday night I went to K-mart and bought some red shorts, a black t-shirt with red skulls on it, and a cape. I pulled out my fangs from last year (if you need some costume fangs, buy the ones called Dracula Fangs--they're pricey, but they pay for themselves because they're amazing and you can use them again and again), had my mom paint my fingernails black, and prepared for my run the next day.

It was around 40 degrees this morning--my perfect running temperature. Some gloves might have been nice, but those would cover up my nails! I showed up to the event, registered, and got ready to run. We all lined up in the road. They told us that much of the route would be a dirt path, which would be muddy because of the last two days' rain. They told us to watch out for a giant puddle shortly after the mile mark, and that there would be a water station. They counted down and we all ran. In the beginning I was in fourth place, although once we went downhill a few others passed me. (I repassed some of them later on the trail.) We got to the dirt trail. This particular trail is one that I went running on once last year. And only once. Because it doesn't take long for it to get really, really steep for a really, really long time. But I knew that this was only a 5k, and it started earlier than I had started running last year. I passed the 1 mile mark. And then it it started getting really steep. This hill was killing me; I was feeling not good at all. I knew that I would fall behind, but I knew I couldn't keep running up it (since I already knew how far it went), so I started walking. It also didn't help that the mud was sticking to my shoes and making it difficult to pick my feet up. Then I walked past a water station, which I had seen the six or seven in front of me go past. The volunteers said, "You're halfway there! Keep going! We have some water for you!" I told them I was good, and kept walking past. And wondered when it was time to turn around. It seemed like it had been forever since I had passed the mile mark (a 5k is only 3.1 miles), but I attributed it to the steepness and the walking. I was thinking, "I don't know what that guy was smoking when he said this trail was flat. A blind person could tell you it isn't flat! And why don't they have any more people out here?" I saw the people ahead of me at the top of another hill. I kept on up this hill, and then they came down and one lady told me, "We didn't know where to turn around, so we just turned." I made it to the top of the hill (after all, if they went there, I guess I should too), turned around, and relayed the message to the next person. Fortunately, now the whole trail was downhill, so I could run again. But I started running down the wrong trail--the illusion was such that it looked like the right one. I didn't go far before I realized what I was doing and turned back. I started wondering if the water station had been where I was supposed to turn around. After all, it had been a while since I passed the one mile mark, and the volunteers said, "You're halfway there." But they didn't say halfway to what, and they didn't say anything when I kept going, and all the people in front of me had kept going.

Sure enough, when I got back to the water station, I saw lots of people ahead of me on the way back, people I know hadn't passed me. When I made it to the finish line, 43 minutes had elapsed. They decided that times didn't count, as the first finishers had said they were way behind but turned around first. So they gave no prizes for times. There were a few costume prizes, but only one judge had turned in her opinions, and they were strange--there were best female costumes but not male costumes, and she thought the 60s was the 80s. There were lots of extra prizes, so they just gave one to everyone in a costume.

So I came home with an orange t-shirt, a cheap tombstone decoration, and very muddy shoes. But the only disappointment I feel now is that my shoes are relatively new.