August 31, 2013
The day I had been counting down to since January!
The day I was SO nervous for!
It started early..... 4:00 a.m. to be exact! We didn't get in bed until about 11:00 p.m. the night before so I was nervous about running on only five hours of sleep!
Shower-Check
Hair-Check
Makeup-Check
The time went by way to quick and before I knew it, it was time to walk out the door! My fantastic dad had made me oatmeal and I took it with me to eat in the car. But I started to feel sick.....I was so nervous that I couldn't eat the oatmeal. I forced myself to eat a few bites because I knew I needed the carbs!
My dad dropped my mom and I off on the corner near the Paradise Pier hotel and left to find a place to park, while we walked toward the starting area. It was 5:30 a.m. but it was already 80 degrees and uncharacteristically humid for southern California!
We met up with Macks and took some fun pre-race pictures, since it was the first time we were all together in our finished costumes! After pictures I was nervous..... jittery nervous.... impatient nervous..... not very pleasant to be around nervous. I was also extremely excited! The 5k runners were going by, fun music was playing and I could see Mickey Mouse in his track suit!
We started heading for the corrals and things kind of fell apart. There were SO many people.... thousands.... like 12,000!! The crowd was making me anxious! Then I looked down at my race bib and read the name "Marilyn"..... I was wearing my mom's race bib! The race was going to start soon and we had to switch out our dang bibs, keeping track of eight tiny safety pins! For some reason, this stressed me out big time and I started to panic!
We finally got our bibs changed and then tried to find corral G. No luck.... so we hung out with the corral F group! Which worked out great because we later hooked up with Kari!
It felt like we stood there forever before the race got going. They started with corral A and started working their way back. I was nervous... and felt sick.... and I kept telling my mom I was positive they were going to end up picking me up along the course!
Our turn was almost up so I started to get my phone ready.... I had bought this really awesome case to hold my phone while I ran, but I couldn't get it to stay on my tutu.... there was way to much tulle!! So I was panicking about how I was going to get it to stay. I finally got that to stay..... went to turn on my music and....
Pandora wouldn't start....
SERIOUSLY!!!!
That just about did me in....
I was already so nervous and so anxious and the stupid music thing made me so angry! How was I going to run without Donny Osmond singing "I'll make a man out of you....."
Trying not to cry, I closed all my apps multiple times and still couldn't get it to work.....
So I turned my phone off a couple times. No luck....
I was so frustrated, I was sweating like crazy from the dang humidity and all the stress, and I kept telling my mom it was NOT fun and I had NO idea why the heck we were doing the dumb race!
Luckily, I have a fabulous mom.... who was silently praying my music would start! Literally minutes before it was our turn, Pandora came on!! Prayers answered!!
With my music working, case on, wearing the right bib number, I was able to calm down a little and start to really enjoy the atmosphere! Finally, about 30 minutes after the initial race started, it was our corrals turn to go!! As I walked toward the starting line, all the fears and anxiety seemed to melt away and I knew that this was going to be my favorite run ever!!
To Be Continued......
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