Tomorrow I will be running my first race, a 5K Turkey Trot through the town of Bedford. I decided to take a spin over to make sure I knew where to park the car in the morning, and where to go and pick up my race number and shoe chip. Bedford is all of one block long - no traffic lights - and I lived one town over for about 20 years, so I probably could have winged it but I felt compelled to go as part of my mental preparation.
I stopped into the Post Office to ask where the start of the race was but they didn't know. A woman there asked me about my running - turns out she was Bobbi Mazer, the owner of La Cremaliere, easily the best French restaurant in Westchester. Bobbi sent me to the Fire Station where she said they'd surely know where the race would start. Three doors over, I rang the doorbell to the Fire House. The Fireman invited me inside - my first time in a Fire House since I was about 4 - and since he didn't know where the race started, he talked to the Fire Chief who pulled out his iPhone and called the Police Detective at home to ask him... You've got to love a small town!
While the Fire Chief and Police Detective discussed the logistics of the race, I poked around the station. They use this cool software called Fire Tracker to record all of their activities. Three huge, shiny fire trucks were at the ready... and two ambulances! It occurred to me that if things went crooked tomorrow, I might be very glad for one of those ambulances. I pictured myself suffocating on the side of the road - EMTs rushing to my side - the ambulance pulling up. The transfer to Northern Westchester Hospital. The call someone would have to make to my mother, "Your daughter's going to be OK..." The Fire Chief interrupted my dreaming and pointed me to the starting line on Court Street.
I drove the 25 feet down the street to the starting line - that's what you do in the country - and noticed a gift shop that looked cute; so I parked the car and went in. Turns out the proprietor, Robin Fallon O'Brien, was originally from Armonk, my home town, and was a few years ahead of me in school. She had been friends with my next door neighbors, Holly Hoechner Farrington and Nancy Cox, growing up - and I used to play with both girls all the time. Holly was was like a big sister and my #1 role model - she taught me to write in "bubble," which - if you're a girl of the 70s - you understand is perhaps the most important skill you learned before age 10. The proprietor was a runner herself and had donated a prize for the winner of the Turkey Trot - a Simon Pearce bowl! The winner... Funny how until that moment I hadn't even thought for a second about the race being a "race" - something that some people were hoping to win! I'm just hoping to finish! Robin warned me that there's a really big hill at the beginning of the race and even she has trouble with it (oy vey!) but that if I can make it up that, it's literally down hill all the rest of the way.
I came back to the city after visiting Bedford and got on the treadmill and ran 2.2 miles. I'd planned to run 3.1 (which is 5K) but time didn't allow. I'm over-scheduled, even on a holiday. Sigh... The 2.2 was challenging but doable and at the end I thought I could probably have walked some and then run a bit more. I do see progress, but it's slow, and running still sucks.
Now I am lining up my gadgets and outfit options for tomorrow, worrying about what to eat or not eat, what to drink, what the weather will be like... and psyching myself up for that hill.
Quote of the day: "They were all impressed with your Halston dress... and the people that you knew at Elaine's."
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