Day 12: Whatever Tickles My Fancy

I started writing this post FOREVER ago and just never got around to posting it so this is the perfect time. And this will be in installments since I tend to expound on multiple tangents. This series is about me and my relationship with running/jogging.

Boston truly is a place for RUNNERS. EVERYONE runs there. It was always so incredible to me because no matter what the weather, people would be out running. It makes sense since the Boston Marathon is such a big deal. The place for everyone to run is along the Charles River. I personally liked to run along the MIT/Cambridge side- I never made it over to the Esplanade area. Since college, I have been a jogger- I say that because I really wasn't a runner. I was only doing it for health, exercise, and cosmetic purposes. I even ran while I lived in Spain and Pepita, the sweet woman I lived with, called me "La Deportista"- the sport girl. However, with so many of my friends in Boston being serious, hard core runners, it was fairly natural that I would begin to call myself a "runner". It was a slow process. When I lived in Watertown, I used to run around Fresh Pond several times, which is like 5 miles once or twice a week. Only my dear dear friend Janae could ever have convinced me to run a 10 mile race with less than a week's notice. Janae has been my friend ever since I moved to Boston, always ready to accompany me on a cultural adventure (in fact, our friendship truly began when we cried together on the Longfellow house tour). Anyways, Janae is an avid runner and has ran several marathons, even qualifying and running the Boston. They had a 10 mile team road race down in Rhode Island and one of their team members dropped out at the last minute and so Janae convinced me that since I could run 5 miles, I could definitely do 10. Only for Janae did I do this. The night before the race, there was a huge snow storm in Boston, but it had only rained down in Rhode Island, but it scared away all of the less intense runners- aka people like ME.

We made the hour drive to Rhode Island and there I was with the rest of my team. Janae, Jamie, and Melissa. And then, we were off. I ran at my own pace- which was noticeably slower than everyone else- and by about mile 6, I was THE LAST person on the course. It was pretty windy and cold- especially along this one part of the course where I felt like I would be blown into the water. It was truly SO EMBARRASSING because I literally was the last person and they had already started to disassemble the course by the time I reached Mile 9. The course looped back the same way that it came and it had weaved throughout the little city and there was no way that I could remember my way back, so I actually just cut out that last mile because I saw the school where the race ended! My friends were shocked to see me because they had figured I had 10 minutes left to finish. I didn't say anything until later in the car ride home that I had just cut out the last part of the race. Needless to say, that really put a bad taste in my mouth about races and so I kind of vowed that I was done with them. I still continued my running for health purposes.

Every year, Janae and Jessica organize TEAM SWEETFEET- primarily a group of LDS runners made up of mainly people from the Longfellow Park singles wards, but also other friends who love to run. Every year, Janae would try to talk me into it and I would remind her that I about how I came in dead last at the road race. She said that I had done 9 and that 13.1 isn't that much more and she would actually help me set up a training schedule. I declined until 2006 when my dear friend Amy was also convincing me to run the race. Training for a race like that is hard, but even harder in Boston because the weather is so rotten for most of your training period of January to May. I wasn't going to do it but the convincing factor actually was my starting to date William. We were in the "awkward" stage of dating where we had been on several dates, yet nothing was really official. Since we had only been out once or twice, I tended to "panic" when things even appeared to go slightly in a negative direction. For example, there was a rare event when I went on a date Tuesday night with William and then I was asked out again by a different guy for Friday night. Since "nothing had happened yet" with William (it was only like date 2), I went on this other date. William had actually asked me on Friday- the night of the date- if I had wanted to go out that night. I said that I was busy but I would want to go out another night. We made plans for Saturday night.

Well, being my dating life where weird things happen to me several times a year, of course the worst (in my mind) would happen. I went with this guy to dinner at Zaftig's delicatessen (and I got my favorite granola pancakes) and we had nice conversation (he was my old hometeacher) but I knew at that point that I was more interested in William. After dinner, my date said that we were going to go do karaoke at Do-Re-Me with another couple from the ward. It turns out that there were some other single people there and that William had been invited to go as well. I was so mortified because here I am on a date with one guy and I have a date the next night with another. It was SUPER awkward for me and I literally had nightmares that night thinking that this had "ruined everything." It made for an amazing long run- about 9 miles- the next day because I was so worried about it. I still went out with William on Saturday night and he never said anything about my being on the date the night before and our conversation was still great. I did several other long runs with my dear friend Amy who also ran the race.

The day of the race deserves a post in and of itself so . . . . TO BE CONTINUED :-)