After watching a game of volleyball, and then a game of basketball, we headed east. We were doing fine on time and the roads were good, although it had snowed some the night before. I was able to knit the entire way (yeah me). We missed our exit right off the bat, and Jay drove to the next one to turn around. We exit, meet a police car and Jay says, "I didn't like the way that cop looked at me." We drive on, turn around (possibly breaking a traffic law) and get back on the highway to go back to the exit we needed. We are doing okay on time, no panic, no major stress of missing the exit.
We nearly miss the exit again, but Jay whips it over and gets off the highway. We're driving along through a semi-residential area and Jay say, "I think I'm being pulled over." We were dumbfounded. It has been a good five to seven minutes since we met that police car. But lo and behold, the sparkly lights were twinkling in the rear-view. Again, we're still calm...but I am thinking, crap, they saw that traffic infraction back there when we turned around, that has to be it.
So we pull over, I keep knitting my fuchsia pink hat and the guy walks up on my side of the car. The guy calmly asks what we are doing, we tell him we're going to a race, assuming he is familiar with it. (You know because if there is anything going on in Martinsville, everyone knows about it...in Indianapolis, not so much.) He doesn't seem to have any knowledge of what we're talking about.
He tells us that Jay gave him a funny look when he met us way back there, to which I explained that we thought the same thing, only that he had given Jay a weird look, he saw we were from Illinois and wondered what we were up to. Hmm, odd. Okay. He then says that Jay was speeding on the highway, which is possible, although we were going with the flow. Jay hands him his license. He does a quick glance over and hands it back. All the while, I'm waiting for the big one - I saw you run that red light back there (hypothetically speaking, of course), but it never comes. He says he just felt like he had to follow up on that suspicious-looking driver and he walked away.
He was very, very friendly. We didn't feel harassed or anything, and I remained oddly calm the entire time. (It's the knitting, it's calming I tell ya.) It was a little strange though. And to finish off that fiasco, we had taken the wrong turn again. Fortunately, Jay didn't seemed rattled either. We had allowed for plenty of time and I knew we would find it eventually...and we did with lots of time to spare.
We parked, Jay got warmed up and jumped in with the mix of runners. They took off and I found the line for the porta-pot. I got talking to the gal next to me and got sidetracked (I know, I know), I turned around and saw green on one of the doors and rushed over and threw it open...to find a man standing there. Of course, I screamed, apologized and got back in line. Hey, the little lever thingy wasn't flipped to red, how was I supposed to know?
My favorite funny of the night - the announcer said there wouldn't be any chili served after the race because they couldn't meet the health department requirement on food temperatures. Instead, they had 80 dozen Dunkin' Donuts, hot chocolate and coffee for the runners. Last year, I thought it was odd that they would offer chili because the last thing I would feel like eating after running even a half mile would be chili. A donut sounds much more appealing.
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| Nice finish sign, huh, right on the garbage. |
There were 448 people who participated in this race. The biggest group was the quarter-marathon bunch. Although Jay started out with about 450 people, his group of half-marathoners consisted of 141 people. I'm proud to say that Jay finished third in his age group 30-39 (male) with a time of 2:18:33. On a paved road, he would have easily finished in under 2 hours, but this is nothing like a road race. There were places he would get off the trail to pass people and be in snow knee-deep. Sounds wonderful, huh?
We had reservations at a Brazilian Steakhouse for 8:00 our time. Jay crossed the finish line at about 7:18. He grabbed his medal and I got him to hold still for a finish photo and we made a dash for the car. Would you believe we were checked into our hotel and delivered to the restaurant via taxi by 8:15? For me, that part of the night was my marathon. Haha. Normally, one should have a proper 'cool down' after a race, but Jay was a trooper. I think his legs shook underneath the table all through supper. (He knows how I feel about food - and it was so late;)
Sometimes I wonder about this guy, but, hey, I had a great Valentine's Weekend with him and he ran a great race. We didn't get a traffic ticket, and I got to go to Target. What more could I ask for?
1 comment:
Congrats to Jay on the race and to both of you for not getting a ticket! I would love, LOVE to have seen the look on Jay's face that was suspicious enough for a cop to pull him over. HAHAHA!!
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