Jingle jingle

This is her:


Jen A, the woman that totally, amazingly sacrificed an extra 3 hours of sleep to go race-walking with me on a cold, drizzly Saturday morning, after having stayed up half the night at work constructing a Yeti Ice Lair--all so that I would not have to endure my first race experience alone. You can almost see real runners there in the background.

I totally forgot to pack the run-o-cam (sorry run-o-cam). Luckily, Jen had her phone-o-cam and was willing to use it to capture the pre-race mood of our 5K walking adventure. This is me with a real race number on my chest, like I'm a real athlete or something:

This is where I should post a disclaimer that goes something like, "Legs in photo are wider than they appear (but unfortunately they are just as short)." But I won't, and will continue to have you believe that my legs really are that thin.

That said, the walk was good, finishing in about 50:00. I went in with two goals: to finish, and to not finish last. We achieved both. We also achieved other spontaneous goals along the way, like to finish ahead of Purse Girl, who was obviously a very serious walker. We could tell by her bootcut jeans, puffy jacket, tote and umbrella.

Also, we reached the consensus that if it is cold enough to require you to wear a winter hat, you should also probably be wearing something other than shorts. Like a shirt.

Along the way we encountered a water boy who looked frightened of us as though we might beat him with our jingle bell nunchucks if he did not offer a sacrifice of bottled water, however reluctantly. We also saw two very fat, but very cute beagles out with their owners, and groups of race volunteers who could have done with an extra lesson in motivational cheering.

And we finished off with a muffin, which is a very fine way to end a race, if you ask me.