saturday was a very big day.
first, the Fat Ass 5k, which was actually pretty fun. the race started at the very civilized hour of 10 a.m.
here’s kevin, dressed in his civil war garb, so that he could fire the opening shot of the race and then sprint along in his running shoes. he was definitely the only civil war soldier in the run, which was mostly filled with people in tutus.
i also saw a guy in a spam costume.
but anyway, we stopped at the hilton on our way to the run, in order to use their lovely bathrooms. when we walked out the front door, there was a big big bus parked out front with its motor running. i said I BET THAT’S LYLE LOVETT!!! WHO ELSE COULD IT BE?
but i didn’t stop to knock on the door, because we had to get over to the run.
i left kevin with his band of other soldiers, and headed over to the “12:00 minute mile” place. i think this might have been the slowest pace, before the hordes of walkers.
a band started up pretty soon right there where i was, on the corner of 6th and washington, and i wandered over to see. and it was Hank Helton! they sounded great, and i talked to his lovely wife shelley who was there taking pictures.
there were so many people, and like i said, plenty of tutus. i stood on the ledge of the fence to get a photo of the regiment, lined up and ready to fire their muskets. unfortunately they were facing away from me. they did turn around when somebody sang the national anthem, but i decided that it would be disrespectful to take a picture while that was going on. right when it was over i was gonna take the picture, but they quickly did an about-face.
kevin was the only one in tennis shoes. the 114th had a very very long dinner every year with many many awards for this and that passed out, and sometimes lectures, and i definitely think kevin should get an award for being the only one of them to ever run in a race after shooting.
this is the crowd of the faster runners in front of me.
when the race started we all shuffled along and the announcer said BE SURE TO STEP OVER THE MAT, the thing that would sync with our tags to give us our total time. at that i panicked, because i was looking around for kevin and i assumed he’d head out the south gate and he needed to go back and over the mat and WHERE WAS HE? so i spent a few frantic moments running around like an ant, panicking and pretty sure i’d never even find kevin.
but then he came running up behind me, because he had exited at the east gate because of COURSE he knew about the mat because he’d been in plenty of runs before.
whew. it was a pretty perfect day for running, and along the way, there were several bands, and they were all good. people were passing out water, but they also passed out donut holes, mini corn dogs, and beer. later i heard that they were giving out some kind of flavored shots, too. and cold stone creamery was giving out tiny little cups of ice cream.
i took a donut hole, but it wasn’t so easy to eat while running. we kept passing people; i guess some of the walkers and really really REALLY slower runners didn’t see the signs where they were supposed to start, so was passed a lot of them. we passed a huge line of people waiting to get beer.
the course wove around downtown, and at one corner there was an old couple playing polka music; she was playing the accordian, i think. dang, i shoulda taken a picture, but i was too busy trying to keep up my pace.
ricky dunham, elvis himselvis, was on the next corner and i yelled at him but he was very busy getting his picture taken with some runners.
you had to run the course two times to make it a 5K, and the second time around, the line for beer was pretty staggering. this time ricky saw me, but not kevin. some announcer guy from the radio station shouted out to us as we ran by – he finally figured that kevin was a civil war soldier.
we suddenly came upon a huge mass of people and realized that these were the really REALLY slow walkers who were still making their way around the first time. we ran up on the sidewalk past them. i did get a little cup of ice cream, but it wasn’t fun to eat when running; it sort of coated my throat.
and then it was over, and i was glad, and tired, and we had some water, and they had apples but we didn’t want one. the apple women said that they also got bananas but they were all too green, so they were gonna donate them somewhere instead. they wanted me to take their picture with kevin, so i did, and then had them take one of us.
we passed the place where you could have a pulled pork lunch, and a young guy was in line, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. they weren’t passing out cigars, but there was a cigar stand at the end.
mind you, the race started at 10, and we were done by 10:36. kind of early in the day for pulled pork and cigars and beer.
we slowly walked back to the car, stopping in at a little store, and we walked past the course and there were still walkers walking it. these were the serious fat-assers, the ones who were just kinda strolling along sipping their beers.
so there were plenty of people who were running to run, and plenty who were strolling to have fun. serious runners and serious partiers, all coexisting peacefully.
we ran 11:09 minute miles, and kevin coulda gone a lot faster than that even in his wool pants, but he ran with me, which was much more fun. the guy who came in first ran it in 14 minutes, 20 seconds, and he was running 4:37-minute miles. i can’t even wrap my head around being able to run that fast. we realized that we must have seen some of these guys when we were doing our second lap, as they flew by us.
the first four people were all guys in their 20s, but the person who came in 5th was a 47 year-old woman from chatham. according to the fatass website her name is Juliann Heminghous. YAAAAY juliann! she ran it in 18 minutes, 27 seconds.
doing this run emphasized to me just how little i’ve been running lately, and how slow i am anyway, and i hope to get at least a little faster. in august i’m going to run in abe’s amble, a 10K race on the second sunday of the state fair. 10k, twice as many k’s as the 5k. plus it starts at 7:30 a.m. , very early. plus, instead of going on the flat downtown streets, the course goes through lincoln park, very very hilly, and oak ridge cemetery, also so hilly.
we actually ran in the amble two times, but the last time was in 2005. in 2004 i thought i was gonna die doing it, and old guys wearing knee braces were passing me. i trained more for the second one, and it wasn’t so bad, so i have hopes that this one will be good.
meanwhile…LYLE LOVETT!
after too much other busy stuff saturday afternoon, we saw lyle over at the sangamon auditorium. kevin suggested that we walk there, and i really wanted to, but i was much too tired.
lyle was AWESOME. i’ve only seen him once before, when i lived in LA, and i think i was sitting in the very back row, but i remember how much i loved that concert, and this one was even better.
he was just as great, and down to earth and funny as i remembered, although i’d forgotten. he talked a little in between some of the songs, and at one point he said that they’d driven here from kansas city, and on saturday morning they’d been sleeping on their bus here in springfield and “heard the pitter patter of feet” because of course THE BUS WAS PARKED RIGHT OUTSIDE THE HILTON.
he said that they strolled across the street to get some coffee and a guy on the loudspeaker yelled at them “get outta the way, fat ass!” he said that made him feel right at home.
he was SLEEPING RIGHT THERE.
but of course i wouldn’t have knocked.
plus i seriously doubt that lyle woulda been the one who woulda opened the door.
i bet it woulda been the curly-haired young guy, the roadie, who came out on stage before the performance and tuned the guitars and opened the water bottles. he was dressed in a suit, as were all the band members.
i figured that lyle would only play stuff from his new album, so was pleasantly surprised to hear some old songs that i loved, and i never listen to anymore. but now i’m gonna.
songs like “That’s right (you’re not from texas).”
a very good day.
in between the running and the concert, other things occurred, which i will have to share with you soon.
and here’s darling lester, in his new harness.
ok then,
mrs. may hughes.