dead last, but finished

Today was the Saucon Valley 10K, on the SV Rail Trail. It was dark and gloomy at the beginning, so I took the pix in the lot and left my camera and phone in the car. I took the iPod and put it in a zipper bag and put it in my pocket.

While waiting at the start line the skies opened up and it poured. I never noticed the race started. I didn't hear a gun, or an announcement or anything. People just started moving.

Last night I downloaded the stop watch app for the iPod. It was hard to set squeezing one finger into the zipper bag. I set it as I walked, so I might have started a little slow.

It was a rail trail. Flat, gravel and crushed stone. Normally at streets there are gates so people don't drive on them. All the gates were open and there was volunteers crossing everyone.

This was a run, but walkers were allowed if you could finish in under two hours. No support services would be available after 2 hours. I thought, no problem, right? Wrong.

I was dead last the whole race, and the longer I went the further behind I was. They had removed the cones at the turn around, I almost missed it. The second last crossing wasn't manned, and I thought shit, how slow am I going? The last crossing was unmanned and the gates were closed. I was really worried.

I finished in 1:44:something. I was going to take a pix of the iPod screen, but apparently it resets in the time it takes to walk to the car. Officially I'll be listed as DNF (did not finish) because they were giving out the awards when I came in, and nobody was at the finish line to take my tag.

Dead last but finished. Guess I should be proud that I finished, but I'm not. That is a 17 minute mile. Not good enough for the marathon.

When I got back to the car, there was a message from Lyd on my phone. She was cheering me on. I felt like the girl in the car commercial.