Corporate 5k :: Recap

Marathon Chris and me after the race

My office is a 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM type of place. With the start time of the Corporate 5k set at 6:45PM I knew we'd never make it in time if we didn't leave early. I was able to recruit Ross, Trey and Val to join in the fun. We headed out the door at 5:30 PM and at 6:00 when we still hadn't parked, I was starting to feel a little stressed. I'm early by nature.

We made it with a few minutes to spare, enough time for potty breaks and then we made our way through the Citrus Bowl to the starting line.

Along the way, I located Chris' tent, but I didn't see her and I figured she was tending to her team of about 75.

Ross(23:15)wanted to get as close to the starting line as possible. That was probably a good strategy. There were a lot of people lined up where they shouldn't have been. It took me almost 2 1/2 minutes to get to the starting line and then the first half mile or so I ran on the sidewalk, because it was next to impossible to jockey around people. A 2 lane road is tad too narrow for 7,300 people.

The course wound it's way through a small residential area, an industrial area and past some Mom and Pop shops. Some of the area residents came out to see the commotion, but it was a much different feel than people sitting in their driveways cheering us on at the Winter Park Road Race.

As we passed through a retail area I saw a sign on my left that said "Hot Food". Across the street a man was chanting and shaking his fist triumphantly. I had my MP3 player on and I couldn't quite tell what he was saying. He was either said Je-sus, Je-sus or he was saying Cheese-burger, Cheese-burger. My group used that man as a reference point when recapping the race amongst ourselves. Val(29.32) told me he was definately saying Je-sus, Je-sus.

As we made our turn to start heading back to the Citrus Bowl, we were heading due West at Sunset. Genius me, totally forget to wash my face before I left the office. Direct sun, strenuous activity and mascara don't mix well. It felt like I had acid in my eyes. Not good.

About the same time I started feeling dizzy. I have never felt like that before. I was almost scared and my mind was racing. What if I passed out? Would people run over me? How would my crew know what happened to me? I won't finish and I would never live that down. I CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN! I HAVE TO SHAKE THIS OFF. After 50 yards or so, I started feeling better.

My team made arrangements to meet at the finish line as we completed the race, or at the Disney tent, because surely we could all remember that. I was anxious about finding everyone after the race. Ross, Val and I rode together, Trey (25:30) drove himself and we didn't find him before the race started. I was plesantly suprised to see Ross and Trey waiting together at the finish line chute. I was so excited to see them that I totally missed the water. Once I realized I had passed it, there were so many people I didn't even attempt to go back. I made my way around to join the boys and a few minutes later Val came through the chute. She joined us and we spent about 15 minutes people watching.

We saw the mullet guys and we were all happy about that. That is one entertaining group of guys.


The Mullet Guys and Friends

As we passed through the crowd gathered near the beer table, I handed off my two beer tickets to a group of people who were enjoying the brew. No sense in letting them go to waste... During the process we lost Trey again. Apparently he ran into some people he knew and stayed with them. I told Ross and Val that I wanted to stop by at Marathon Chris' tent and the next thing I knew, she was walking right beside me! It was perfect timing!

We chatted for a while took a picture, and then Ross and I were trying to decide if we should fill out a scorecard for our team.

I was in shock when I read Chris' post this morning that we took first place for a Co-Ed team in the Advertising/Media/PR industry. w00t w00t!

Wow!

My final time (net) was 27:51.