{"id":39185,"date":"2021-12-03T19:10:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T00:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=39185"},"modified":"2021-12-03T19:10:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T00:10:19","slug":"a-man-a-plan-a-marathon-a-panama-city-beach-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=39185","title":{"rendered":"A Man. A Plan. A Marathon. A Panama City Beach Marathon."},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Wait.<\/p>\r\n

That\u2019s a terrible palindrome.<\/p>\r\n

As in it is NOT a palindrome.<\/p>\r\n

That\u2019s okay. Because this trip is kinda NOT what I should be doing either.

I\u2019m really trying to thread a needle here. It was a six hour drive from my house to the race. I\u2019m staying in a hotel along the beach, off season, with most things shut down or undergoing renovations for the re-opening, post-pandemic (ha! Dream on, beachcombers\u2026 dream on). I need to run the race tomorrow, drive home, grab a few hours sleep before boarding a 6:20 AM flight to the West Coast. I\u2019ll lose an hour driving from the panhandle to the peninsula of Florida\u2026 then gain three hours jetting to the left coast. But that just means I have no idea what time it is.

The next two weekends are races that I had \u201cdeferred\u201d from 2020 due to the pandemic. And honestly, maybe they should be deferred once again. This omicron variant and the ongoing politicization of viable preventative measures is no joke\u2026 except possibly here in Panama City Beach.

No one is wearing a mask here.<\/p>\r\n

Outside, with signs asking folks to keep 6 feet of distance, I could *almost* excuse it. But nobody is masked indoors. Not the hostess at Dave and Barry\u2019s, site of the pre-race expo. Not any of the volunteers working the packet pickup. I wore mine. And I will continue to do so because, again, it\u2019s an ounce of prevention for a life-threatening virus. Doesn\u2019t seem too hard of a choice to make. It\u2019s annoying to wear a mask, yes, I know. I get it. Every breath I take, every move I make, I seem to fog up my glasses or sunglasses. But it\u2019s just what we have to do to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and yes, strangers. An act of kindness and part and parcel of a social contract. This is NOT political, people. It\u2019s just common courtesy and common sense.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>

But this is a place where Spring Break apparently visited as a teenager, found itself a bloated middle aged sell-out who thought it could recapture the \u201cspirit\u201d of Spring Break by an overtly sanitized yet somehow even creepier shellacking of the buildings with \u201cflare\u201d and \u201cfamily friendly\u201d icons. It all feels unhip, uninviting, and maybe it\u2019s the off season vibe, but incredibly desperate.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>

The beach however is nice. Some good sun shots. Albeit, they wanted to charge me $7 to walk down their pier. SEVEN DOLLARS! Maybe that\u2019s the spirit of Spring Break\u2026 the exploitation of the na\u00efve\/foolish\/devil-may-care-I\u2019m-invincible-and-an-oh-so-entitled-college-kid so $7 is just fine.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>

On the plus side, Santa has his board. Hang loose, St. Nick. Hang loose.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>

***

I sat down to figure out what all I needed to prep for tomorrow\u2019s run. The route is a weird out and back\u2026 or at least an out\u2026 wander about in some freakish approximation of multiple dead ends and turnabouts and THEN head back.

\"\"<\/a>

As I was sitting there, the 40-something Wyndham Time Share salesperson was closing a \u201cjust hear them out and we\u2019ll give you $50!\u201d pitch to a couple. And once he finished with them, he turned to his comely coed assistant and crowed how easy it was to sell people on it all. He saw me and I guess wanted to show off for her. He was wrong on multiple fronts. In chronological order:<\/p>\r\n

    \r\n
  1. He thought I would be interested in a timeshare in Panama Beach City.<\/li>\r\n
  2. He saw I was drinking Diet Coke and the FIRST thing he said to me was, \u201cHey, man\u2026 you know how bad those Diet sodas are for you?\u201d I sighed heavily and said, \u201cyes, yes\u2026 I\u2019m aware. Thanks.\u201d<\/li>\r\n
  3. He then chose to double down, saying, \u201cno, all these studies prove how bad it is for you. I\u2019m just telling you the facts, man.\u201d I bit my tongue and simply nodded and said again, \u201cyeah, so I\u2019ve heard.\u201d<\/li>\r\n
  4. He then TRIPLE downs, realizing that he may have blown his potential sale by insulting the mark right out of the gate, implying his customer, e.g. ME, was stupid for drinking Diet Coke. Thus, he pivots to a sad tale of how his grandmother died from diet soda. I merely shook my head and offered my apologies, gathering up my bag of race swag and rising from my chair.<\/li>\r\n
  5. He then tries one last tact, asking what I am in town for\u2026 to which I said I was running the marathon. He asked if I was in shape to run the whole way or if I needed to walk or how it worked. I told him I thought I could finish. He asked if I had ever run that far before. I again bit my tongue and opted to just go with, \u201cyeah\u2026 last Sunday I ran one in 3:23. Have a good night, sir.\u201d He wanted to fist bump me which I begrudgingly did.<\/li>\r\n
  6. Did I mention he wasn\u2019t wearing a mask? And that he was a timeshare salesman?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    Anyhoo, opting out of the shenanigans of the beach area, I headed off to grab some food and retreat into my own personal covid-free (fingers crossed) bubble at my 1.5 star hotel. The view is spectacular\u2026<\/p>\r\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

    \u2026yet I am confident there has been at least one murder in this elevator.<\/p>\r\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

    I’m taking the stairs tomorrow.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Wait. That\u2019s a terrible palindrome. As in it is NOT a palindrome. That\u2019s okay. Because this trip is kinda NOT what I should be doing either. I\u2019m really trying to thread a needle here. It was a six hour drive from my house to the race. I\u2019m staying in a hotel along the beach, off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39185"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39219,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39185\/revisions\/39219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}