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This year, my husband, Dan, and I spent Thanksgiving with his family in the eastern part of the state. We were running in a race in Idaho Falls on Thanksgiving morning, but Dan and I arrived a half-hour too late to pick up our packets and bib numbers. We went to dinner and a movie instead.
We were waiting in line to get our movie tickets when a little girl, around age three or four, barreled through the door with her family. She ran around the ticket booths, chattering up a storm. All of a sudden, she froze right in front of Dan.
“Long hair?!” she exclaimed, staring at him in shock.
I looked around the theater. She was right. A man with long hair and a beard was an anomaly in that place. We fit right in when we visit Seattle or Portland, and even Boise has quite a lot of long hair and beards. Not so in eastern Idaho, I suppose.
Dan and I decided on an R-rated movie after we saw how many young kids were running around. I would have suggested Moana, but thought better of it when I noticed a child lying on the ground, being dragged by the arm by his mom into that movie.
(I need to borrow a kid so that I can see Moana, preferably a child who won't need to pee every five minutes or talk to me at all during the movie. Let me know if you have any practically comatose children with large bladders I could borrow, for like, two hours.)
Thanksgiving morning, we headed to the race. We had been sent several e-mails stating that late registrants would not be receiving commemorative shirts. We hadn't registered that late, but we already own around five hundred fifty-one race shirts. In other words, that was fine with us.
Due to our "late" packet pick-up the next morning, we also ended up with bibs that said, "I Run Utah" on them.
"Why do you have a different bib?" one runner asked us. "Are you doing the 10K or something?"
"We didn't get into town on time last night . . . so this happened . . . " I told her.
The runner started talking about how the race starts late every year. They were already fifteen minutes past the start time. She said the previous year, it was worse. The runners had to stand around in the snow for thirty minutes.
"People started yelling 'Start the race!' at the officials," she said.
I did finally see a few guys, other than Dan, with long hair and beards at the race. You've gotta stay warm if you're going to run in the winter.
In case you were wondering, the race did begin eventually.
I have this issue when I run in the winter. My ears tear up . . . big time. I am not talking about a bit of moisture around the lashes either. Waterfalls cascade from my eyes, people.
I am pretty sure the volunteers who were cheering us on as we approached the finish line thought, "Look at this woman, so emotional about finishing the race! She must have overcome some obstacles to do this."
I didn't. My eyes are just weird.
I have to brag about our finish though. Dan and I were at the old end of our age group, and Dan got fourth out of the males, ages 35-39, and I got sixth out of the females, ages 35-39. And, before you ask if only ten people were running, there were over five hundred participants.
At the end of the race, everyone tried to give us their coffee mugs. We must look like we drink a lot of coffee. They guessed right.
We drove through a lighting display in one of the local parks our last evening in town. The ticket seller must have been used to families with young kids coming through because she said, "Stop at the tent up top and you can see Santa . . . or . . . " she looked at us again and gave a chuckle . . . "I guess you could take your own pictures instead . . . "
But the best part . . .
The local museum was hosting a traveling exhibit of the American Revolution which we visited with Dan's family. I bet you can imagine what I was doing the entire time . . . (Dan can't take me anywhere.)
"Alexander Hamilton . . . my name is Alexander Hamilton . . ."
"Here comes the GENERAL!"
"One last time . . ."
"LAFAYETTE!"
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