Well, this is another fine mess I’ve made. I don’t even have a straight man to my bumbling ways to make it seem like a comedy routine. It’s just a screwup.
A few days ago I signed up for a virtual run because:
- a) it was cheap — $29 including a medal and shirt shipped to my door, and
- b) because, well, running.
I had it in my head that it was maxing out offering a half-marathon challenge, which is great and all but I really prefer the marathon distance because, well, I’m a mess of a man (made all the more apparent here in a few).
So I printed out my virtual bib with its mock ruler design and “we’re responsibly running socially distant but distantly running” vibe. Had my Mom snap a photo of me with a tape measure showing me 6 feet away and prepped for the run.
It was dark and dreary and drizzly at 6 AM but I was up and, well, I had already slapped text stickers on my photo above committing to the day. So I ran.
I ran out to Disney Springs, which is a slightly different route than I normally do because I thought I should try and make this one special. Mickey had some advice for me at the property’s edge:
And a guard had some bad news when I got across a pedestrian walkway flyover bridge:
I wound up kinda doing a route by wandering around but finished up with a middling 1:49:33. It’s good, it’s fine, I didn’t really enjoy it as my mind was adrift on the stormy choppy waters of depression and all things negative thanks to Covid-19. I’m scared for the future and I’m not really sure what I’m doing and all that is taking a toll. But I ran the half, right? Good for me, right?
As I drip perspiration sitting on my back patio, slurping a half bottle of Powerade Zero, I pull out my phone and log in to record my virtual results. It’s one of those websites that doesn’t seem to render correctly on my phone — not sure if it’s a desktop site instead of their mobile site or if it’s just my wonky phone. I have friends who would tell me it serves me right for getting a Samsung… but I still say it’s a better camera than on the iPhone. Anyhoo, because the columns aren’t quite rendering and the input is half off the screen even if I rotate my phone to landscape as opposed to portrait, I just do my best to submit the time. Eventually I realize it has gone through and I think, “well, that’s that.”
But then I see it’s showing me as # 1 in the results, over a lot of other people. Which is plausible I suppose but certainly not probable. And so when I click for details, I see they have me with a world record setting *marathon* time of 1:49:33, crushing Eliud Kipchoge’s recent sub-2 herculean accomplishment. Apparently, I did sign up for a marathon distance for this virtual event but had… forgotten?… blocked it out?… confused it with another virtual run that only offered a half distance? Who can say? But I do know I’ve sent a couple of emails to the folks trying to remedy this — honest, people, it wasn’t my intention to claim I had run a marathon in an hour and fifty minutes.
I’m just feeling dumb and foolish and embarrassed and oddly ashamed that I screwed this up. And I’m really sorry to these folks:
Running is supposed to be a balm for the restless body and soul. Today it just feels like one more thing I’ve screwed up.
Maybe tomorrow will be better. Or maybe it’ll be the same. There’s an old cliche in movies espoused by ex-cons — you only do two days in prison — the day you go in and the day you go out. The rest is just… (shrug).
I’m in the (shrug).