Dash in the 'Bash Race Report

Yes, I am enough of a runner now that I get to do a race report. This makes me feel rather special.

My left shin is made of shards of
broken glass.

I crippled myself. Yes, my shin splint (only the left leg is destroyed, making "shin splints" singular) is far worse and I have spent last night and today hobbling about, icing my leg, wearing my pressure sleeves, and vowing not to run anywhere until after Rachael's wedding so that people don't ask her why her bridesmaid is walking like she has a peg leg.


I ran the race mostly by myself. This is because I wasn't the slowest person, but I also was not the fastest. I ran about the first quarter mile with my friend Erin, who I begged to run the race with me, until she had to slow down. She hadn't been tortured training for as long as I have. If we'd had a few more weeks before the race, we'd have finished together.


I cannot run and swallow at the same time, leading to some amusement at the water stop. I took a sip of water out of the paper cup they gave me, then I tried to swallow but nothing happened. Kind of like when I eat sushi. Instead, I held the water in my mouth while simultaneously trying to throw up the water and choke on it. I had to stop and walk to swallow, then continue at a walking pace until the water was gone.

The Beutler-Strange Trio. So much skill and
talent, it's like a third person.

I couldn't throw the cup on the ground like the other runners. I held it while I ran until I saw a race volunteer, then asked her if she could take it away. She thanked me, but was rather surprised. Hey, it saved them clean-up after the race.

Some freaky dude ran the race in 16 minutes. I think he was a robot. Or an alien. He was ginger, so maybe there's some truth to all that.

I ran the race in 33 minutes, 14 seconds. That is about 10 minutes less than the time I thought I'd end up with--i.e. the time I'd had each other time I ran that distance. The difference? I wasn't running alone. That makes a big difference for me. Apparently I try when I'm with other runners and slack off when I'm by myself.

They gave me water at the end of the race and also a banana. The water was the best thing I have ever tasted in my life. The banana seemed sort of pointless, but I ate it anyway.

Erin, despite fighting a cold and abject misery, ended up placing in her age group! She was 3rd in the 20-25 year old group. (I can't remember how the split up the ages, so I think I got that divide right, but it could have been 19-26, who knows?)

With our victory bananas. They should have been made
of solid gold.