10-10-10 10K

This Sunday….10-10-10…..what a fitting day to do something different. I don’t know why we, as humans, feel the need to do something out of the ordinary, epic, or different on dates that happen to line up evenly or mean something special, but we do and this day was no exception. Actually, it was kind of coincidence (some might argue otherwise) that on this day I did something different…something I had never done before. It wasn’t until after I ran my first 10K that I realized the significance and the similarity of the date and the distance I ran.

About a week and a half ago, one of my friends from church decided to tell me that she had signed me up for a 10K run after our short conversation about running. While I do enjoy running, I’ve never 10K before in my life. Imagine my surprise when she said the race was only 9 days away! The only real ‘training’ I was able to do was run one 5K around the commons by my house this week….and I almost died. (not literally, no need to worry here Grandma Mary)

The 10K on 10-10-10 came soon enough and before I knew it, it was 6am and we were up getting ready for the big race. There were 6 of us in total and Mandy (the friend from church) wasn’t about to run in normal clothes—No, we had to make ourselves stand out. I felt like I was back at Kanakuk summer camp as we painted up our calves with arrows and faces with war paint to get us amped for the race. Our luminescent headbands made it easy for us to find each other if we got separated, but the most important part of our running costume was our bright neon tutus. Yep, that’s right, it was a tutu weekend for me! From meeting the great Archbishop himself to donning the ballerina’s staple outfit I certainly had my fair share of the wide spectrum of “tutu.”

I am pleased to report that I finished the race without dying, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with our outfits. When you are wearing something ridiculous like that and everyone is staring at you, you can’t start to walk—you must finish the race running strong! I guess I can’t be upset with Mands—she knew I could do it and just wanted to hit my competitive streak so that I would run in the 2 Oceans marathon with her this March---registration opens on November 1^st…we’ll see about that one…. J