Run for Breast Cancer

This Sunday a friend and I ran in a run/walk/skate/whatever for breast cancer. We got these awesome pink shirts and pink balloons, however we ended up tying our balloons to her daughter's stroller and leaving them with her husband, because we were going to run and the balloons would just get in the way.


Before it started, we had to pee, so we looked around for the port-a-potty...

None in sight.

So we asked a volunteer. "Where's the bathroom?"

"There is none" was the reply.

No bathroom!?!? So we ran to a bar and waited in a ridiculous line (because every other one of the thousand ladies there had to pee too) and barely made it back in time for it to start.

What were they thinking holding an event for a thousand WOMEN and not having a few port-a-potties? Everybody knows that women have to pee a lot, and it's not like we can just go behind a tree like men can (and men here DO all the time. Ick).

So when the run/walk/skate/whatever did start, they shot off all this confetti and a lot of people let go of their balloons. It was quite an impressive sight, all that pink. I must say, I do like pink:


Since there were so many people and we almost didn't make it back in time, we couldn't get at the front (where the runners were supposed to be) so we got trapped in the crowd. We ended up getting on the sidewalk and cutting around the crowd as soon as we could, or else we would have been stuck walking the whole time. Here we are pretending to run amidst the masses:


Before signing up, I thought it was going to be a 10k.

I was wrong.

According to the website, the race was "approximately 4k." That's 2.5 miles. That's also less than what I run on an average day.

AND it only took me about 17 minutes to do the race, so apparently their approximation was either a bit off or I'm a Superstar Speedster because it should have taken me 23-25 minutes to run 4k, because I run SSLLLOOOOWWWW.

When I turned the last corner and saw the finish line I thought, "what? I'm not even tired yet."

Here I am getting ready to cross the finish line:


There's nobody else around me because most people walked, and my friend is a faster runner than I am so she finished a minute or two before me. My friend and I were concerned we'd be the only people running, but thankfully there were a good handful of other runners.

Even though the "race" wasn't much of a challenge, I was still quite thirsty afterwards. So what did they have for us to drink? A nice, cool bottle of water? A refreshing Fruit Punch or Blue Ice Powerade?

What else, but a never ending table of Coca-Cola products!?!?!

Regular Coke, Coke Light (they don't have Diet here. Coke Light uses an artificial sweetener that tastes better, but gives you more cancer), Coke Zero, Caffeine Free Coke, Fanta Lemon, Fanta Orange, Fanta Zero Lemon, Fanta Zero Orange, and Aquarius, a Coca-Cola carbonated free product.

Not a single bottle of water in sight.

And despite the ginormous Powerade inflatable start and finish line, not a single bottle of Powerade in sight.

What??

And then after the race half the crowd lit up cigarettes. The other half had already smoked theirs before it started.

Does anybody else see the irony in the murky billows of second hand smoke wafting into our lungs after the race against CANCER? Or the Diabetes-In-A-Can drinks? Or the CANCER causing artificial sweeteners in the non-Diabetes-In-A-Can drinks? Or the releasing of a thousand non-biodegradable balloons into the air, just waiting to land somewhere and poison the earth and give us all CANCER??

Oh the irony.



In other news, tonight I was eating a scoop of ice cream in the city center while people watching when a short, chubby old man walked up to me, stared at my ice cream and started to lick his lips and lean forward. I wasn't quite sure how to respond (was he playing with me or going to steal my ice cream? I've learned not to trust little old men, no matter how cute and innocent they may look), but then he broke out into a chuckle, patted my arm, and went on his way, leaving me to enjoy my scoop of Ben&Jerry's Cheesecake Brownie.

It's the little things that make life fun. :)