Before any big event, my friend Anne’s advice is always the same: DPYP.
Don’t poop your pants.
Well. I didn’t poop my pants.
And if that’s the barometer by which I measure a successful 5K run, then consider it a raging victory.
I think we’ve all ascertained I’m a struggling runner on my very best day; when the humidity is 10 percent, Jupiter aligns with Mars, my inhaler has adequately opened my airways and my tooth hasn’t fallen out. I’d been training for the Paint Pittston Pink 5K for months. Finally, my time was whittled down to a respectable length whereby I would not be an embarrassment to myself or to my brother, who is like, the fastest man in the valley and a cross country coach.
My older son came home from school to accompany me on this run. I was so thankful he did this to support his mother. What a good boy!
So thoughtful — until the starting gun went off. I turned to ask him how to start the song list on my complicated phone and all I saw were skid marks. So much for being my comrade in agony. That boy left me, quite literally, in his pink dust.
These people are deadly serious about running. I thought this was a fun run to raise buckets of bucks for a groundbreaking breast cancer vaccine. Aren’t we just supposed to trot along, smug in the knowledge we aren’t marathoners, but our donations are helping to find a cure for BC? After I was elbowed out of the way by an elderly woman clutching a rosary, and two men pushing strollers, I knew this was as serious as — breast cancer?
Still, I chugged along, and after the first agonizing 500 feet, I thought I was ready to retire. What the heck? When did both bridges become inclines? It doesn’t feel that way when I’m racing across them in a car. After the bridges, I felt sure I was going to be OK. (I’d run this race before and apparently erased it from my short-term memory forever). Then, I saw before me what I believed was my punishment for all the horrible things I’ve ever done in my life, including, but not limited to, stealing my parents’ Peach Schnapps throughout all of 12th grade.
I looked straight into the eyes of Satan, whose middle name was Swallow Street. It’s called Swallow Street because I swallowed my pride and had to stop. I had to stop because my banana nut muffin was going to make a reappearance.
Why was no one else crying? I don’t get it.
I wiped the pink dust from my contacts, looked around and tried to catch someone else’s glance in order to commiserate. I did meet the fleeting eyes of a couple of fourth-graders, but what they looked at me with was not a feeling of shared misery, but pure sympathy.
They said, “You can do it, Grandma,” but with the blood pounding in my ears, I couldn’t be sure. They may’ve been saying, “Get your Geritol, Granny.”
Whatever.
I will continue to fight the fight and race this race until I open up Time magazine one day and see the headline: “Breast Cancer Cure.” It’s worth my sweat and anxiety and whining. Plus, I didn’t poop my pants, so I gave myself a medal.
Win-win.
