I did my 45th and 46th half marathon this weekend.
I dragged my body out of bed at 4:00am to drive almost two hours north to the race site--a beach run that offered a completely flat course and cloudy skies. It was a small race of only 50 and quite lovely. As you can see from my bib number, I got quite a few laughs and comments. What luck. I eventually unpinned it and attached to my running pants and covered as best as I could with my shirt. I ran an extra five miles after the race as a training run...covering 18 miles that day.
I then drove one hour south and to stay the night near my next race in Orange County. Less than 24 hours later, I dragged my body out of bed once again. I parked my car at the race site only discover I was at the gate of Coto de Caza, home of the Real Housewives of Orange County and a super exclusive gated community. And when I say gated, I don't mean you push a button and a gate opens. It was heavily guarded with one guard for visitors and one guard for residents, along with a police officer monitoring the entrants and plenty of security cameras surrounding the gates. "I wonder what it looks like beyond those gates?" I thought.
I got my answer. The race was a trail half marathon that went into the community and I discovered how the other half lives--and it is pretty spectacular--like out of a movie. I felt like I was in a film about Miami drug lords with their McMansions and perfectly manicured gardens and beautiful models lounging next the pool laying in expensive chaise lounges. The estates/palaces/compounds (I don't know what they are called) looked the size of hotels and the pools and guest quarters looked plucked right out of a resort.
The race itself was small and held a pack of top-notch runners. I immediately felt out of place listening to them discuss how one was trying to break 1,000 marathons, one was going for the Guinness Book of World Records for most marathons run in a year (he was up to 137 at the moment.) Me? I was out for a jog. I pulled out my iPod and heard a girl who just recently completed running seven marathons in seven days say, "I could never run with music. Only purists run without music." Whatever.
Needless to say, I came in second to last. One girl finished after I did...and she was listening to music.
Time for ice.
