Despite having run the distance hundreds of times (okay, maybe one hundred) I’ve never once done so officially; with safety pins affixed, an assigned number, other runners in front of and behind me, or a time recorded anywhere but for an app on my phone. That all changes this Saturday and I couldn’t be any more giddy or less prepared.
When the Detroit Red Wings Hockeytown 5K email landed in the promotional folder of my gmail account earlier this year (or late last, I cannot recall exactly) I cried real, honest tears reading all of the details:
- current and former players on the 3.1 mile route
- a center ice Joe Louis Arena finish line
- name(s) on the jumbotron overhead as runners enter the Joe
- and a glimmering red & white finisher’s medal in the shape of the Red Wings beautifully strange boxy arena to commemorate its final season.
I’d cry a few more times in the weeks and months that followed as I’d regale others with information about the Hockeytown 5K and the fact that my wife and kids will be driving the 8 hours to Detroit in a gorgeous Red Wings (hyper) red Kia Sportage to run it with me.
The problem is, right now, 48 hours before the Hockeytown 5K begins, my legs are absolutely shot. Nice timing.
Maybe it was the 600 miles I ran in 2015 or the hundreds more I hiked during the first half of 2016 to prepare for what would end up a 97-mile trek across England this past summer, or maybe it’s that I almost never stretch, or that I still overeat (okay, that’s not good but probably not exactly why my calves are throbbing or why my knees feel decades older than the rest of my frame).
I’ve had to come to terms with the fact, and having my wife and kids alongside me surely helps make this realization more palatable, that my first official 5K will not be anywhere near a PB time. Hell, we’ll probably walk 90% of the course. And that’s going to be okay (I keep telling myself).
Whether running, jogging, walking or crawling to the finish line on Saturday, I’ll do so covered in the happiest of tears (I’m crying again writing this sentence, picturing us four finishing 3.1 miles on the covered ice of my favorite place on Earth) and hand in hand with my favorite people.
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