Screaming Pumpkin

Last weekend I raced as a team in a marathon. This is not your average/normal marathon. For several reasons....1) It was ran at night time. Yes, as in the dark. For most of the race that meant complete pitch blackness. Some areas of the course were lit by near by streetlights. And some, but not all, of the people wore headlamps or carried a flashlight. The only way to know where to go was to follow the path of glow sticks they laid on the ground. Glow sticks (like the ones kids like to wear)that after awhile started to fade. (I did see them putting out new glow sticks from time to time). 2) It was run through a cemetery. Well, that just made things a lot funner. Pitch blackness AND a cemetery. 3) The whole point of the race was not to see who could finish the fastest, but rather who could finish the closest to midnight & not go over. You had up to 6 hours to complete the course. So anytime after 6 you could start and pace yourself for that specific time. To make this a little more interesting, there were no clocks on the course and you were not suppose to wear a watch or any time keeping device.

So a group of my running girlfriends, all hear about this race & think.....THIS WOULD BE SO MUCH FUN! (I know, we are such a rare breed of people). For the most part, it was fun. We had a blast. Not that we'd always want to run in such conditions, but we got into the spirit of it all and never gave it a second thought.

When I signed us up for the race there were 3 of us who was going to run for sure. We were looking for a 4th person, but didn't have that detail figured out yet. We were worried that the race would sell out so we decided to sign up anyway and figure out the rest later. (If all else failed we knew I would be crazy enough to run 2 legs so that was our back up plan). I filled out all the necessary forms online, but it required we fill in that 4th name. In an attempt to be a smart alec I put the name Minnie Mouse in that spot. I had been planning to make & run in a full nun costume, but my smart alec moment turned into a stroke of genius and I decided to go as Minnie, since, after all, I did say she would be there.

I'm not much of a sewer and what I do concoct it's fair to say I'm not much of a by the book or by the rule type of sewer. I bought the fabric & a pattern. I only used to pattern for the main pieces of the outfit. For fun, I tried to actually read the sewing directions. It was like reading a foreign language. I found myself quite amused at how complicated they made it in writing. I put all that aside & just started sewing....my way.

Back to the race. We guesstimated how long it would take us to run & set off. I ran the first leg with Sarah, to keep her company. Then I started the next leg with Angela and the same with Elizabeth. Finally it was my turn to run my leg. It actually really helped that I had already run with the others cause I knew what to expect when. It was not an easy course to navigate. Running & not seeing where your feet are landing is hard. Some of the path was wide & well paved. Other parts were narrow, uneven and gravelish. For some extra fun there was also some nice steep hills thrown in from time to time. I would run looking down so much to "watch my step" then realized that I had not looked up for some time. Which looking up is helpful when there are other people on the course and some of the traffic is two way. Not everyone wore any kind of lighting or even much reflective gear. So all of a sudden about 2 feet in front of you a black image would pass by you and scurry past. The cemetery we ran through is the largest & oldest in the area. So there were plenty of big mausoleums & statues to pass by as well. Not that I could see much of it in detail, but I knew they were there.

Here we are as a team before we started to run.



And here we are right after we finished. (Sarah had to leave early). We did finish before midnight. We had 1 minute & 52 seconds to spare, but even that wasn't close enough for us to receive a team trophy. Anyone that finished before midnight received a tiara & magic wand (that was the prized possession we were really after) and if you finished after midnight you got a pumpkin. So no matter what...everyone was a winner. We all made a pact that we would wear our tiara & sport our wands the next day no matter what. I guess, it helped that it was the day before Halloween. Plenty of people were wearing some sort of costume around town that day. I just happened to blend it with it all. But if anyone asked I'd get a big grin across my face & tell them about what great fun I had the night before.