The Gingerbread Run

A woman's first run in only spandex seems rather exposing, but ditching the shorts made me feel fresh, free, and furiously fast.

We ran from our apartment to the lake and back. Along the way, intelligent non-runners took pictures of us from the bushes, blasted Ke$ha tunes, provided energy-nast pinole and stomach-nast gingerbread, and instigated dance parties. This place about to blow.

Partway through, I split with my typical running partners and made a daring dash for the party running ahead of us. This group consisted of Pocker Night boy and some other attractive dude I'd never met. Neither of them were runners in any sense of the word: they just up and ran 13.1 miles on a whim. Still, keeping up with them required me to bust an "I've been training for 8 months" lung. Boys are the worst.

Roundabouts mile 10, as my feet threatened to 'splode (half-marathon in Vibram shoes is a dangerous idea), I epicly wiped out and dove into the bushes. Despite bloody palms and shaken nerves, the only real damage done was to my pride when I realized a mile later that my broken headphones had been knocked loose and hung in one long, embarrassing string from my back pocket for all to admire. I hate back pockets.

After running beneath overpasses and through full-blown movie sets for a feature entitled Family Reunion (oh Utah), the finish line loomed close.

I've rarely felt as good as when I sprinted through the end, found my time to be 1:56:00 including dance breaks and pit stops in the movie crew's trailer, and gorged myself on energy bars and fruit. I've rarely felt as freezing as I did when I was Gatoraded.

My foot is out of order now. I haven't run on it for a month, and it'll probably be another two before I have it back. This is particularly unsettling since all I want for Christmas are new running shoes and more spandex. I've surrendered myself to the winter chubs and Seasonal Affect Disorder. The only treatment is a shopping trip and more cowbell. Worth it.