A few Final Thoughts on the Race

I wish I had been wearing some kind of device that recorded and transcribed my thoughts while I was running Saturday. When you’re pounding the streets for thirteen long miles there are all kinds of thoughts that run through your head, some of them valid and some a bit silly. It takes a lot of mental strength to focus intensely on one goal for that long, and honestly your mind travels to crazy places because you’re tryin’ real hard to forget how tired your body is getting or how much farther you have to go. I can’t remember everything that rolled through my noggin’, but I remember enough to recognize that it would be some interesting reading. I also remember thinking about halfway though it that my thoughts or the thoughts of any of the runners for that matter would be an interesting real time play by play activity for spectators if there was some kind of dictation process that posted those thoughts to the web as they occurred. Like I said, I don’t remember a lot of what crossed my mind, but I do remember these little nuggets:


Mile 1 when I saw a runner’s t-shirt that said This Seemed like a Good Idea 3 Months Ago: “Amen Sister.”

Mile 2 when the rain clouds and that first big breeze came along, counteracting the humidity: “THANK YOU, Jesus!” And that was a sincere prayer of thanksgiving on my part that I repeated for about three blocks.

Mile 3 when I saw the spectator sign that said Worst Parade Ever: “I hope I’m in front of the horses.”

Mile 3 in front of the photographer: “Smile as if you’re actually enjoying this, Hula. People will see this on the web later.”

Mile 3: “Ooh, the new Train song. Isn’t that snappy?”

Mile 4: “I’d rather be eating a sausage biscuit and watching Celebrity Rehab.”

Mile 5: “I hate this frickin’ hill!”

Mile 6: “Gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.”

Mile 6: “Gatorade looks like pee.”

Mile 7: “I don’t care what my finish time is.”

Mile 8: “I don’t want a bad finish time.”

Mile 9: “Was that a dog or an elephant that dropped that turd?”

Mile 10 as I passed the cheerleaders positioned on the route: “They are just too #$%@ cheery.”

Mile 10: “Did that senior citizen just pass me? Seriously?”

Mile 11 as I very wearily passed a little girl waving at the runners from her stroller: “Aw, crap, that makes me want to cry.”

Mile 11: “I think this headband looks dumb.”

Mile 12 as a road crew member warned me a bad storm was about ten minutes away: “Does he seriously think I’m leaving the course now? I will die of a lightning strike before I quit. Bury me with my Asics on.”

A few minutes later: “Or did he tell me that to try to speed me up? Yeah, I got nothin’ left. It ain’t gettin’ any faster than this.”

Mile 13 when I saw the finish line clock a couple of blocks away: “Go to the light, Hula. Go to the light.”

At the finish line: “GIVE me that medal ‘cause I have earned it, dang it.” And then “I am so eatin’ a big old piece of cake today.”

And I did. Italian cream with cream cheese frosting. Perhaps, if someone had been waving that in front of my nose throughout the course, I might have finished faster. I WILL work for food.