Sunday, February 27, 2011

Rodeo Run

Yesterday we woke up too early, piled in the car, and went downtown.  It was 10k race day for the Warlock.  He's been very excited about this race for weeks.  Friday he did some test strides in front of the video camera with the race day outfit and shoes he had picked out.  (All this running as introduced me to a new and interesting Warlock.  He'd better be careful or I'll have to think of a new name for him.)

When we arrived downtown we found optimal viewing location number one and planned out viewing locations 2 and 3.  We were the first spectators to arrive.  (The only time the Warlock is late is when going to church, and that's usually my fault.)  I chatted with the announcer, and he told me to let him know when the Warlock was passing and he'd give him a hard time.  I was having fun now.  We staked out a spot and waited and waited... until Bardo had to go to the bathroom.  We  hurried to the nearby Burger King, bought some bottle waters and hashbrowns, and hurried Bardo into the restroom.  When Bardo was finished I found Pippi holding the Burger King receipt, mortified.  "Mom, we did not order coffee.  Look!  It says coffee on the receipt."  Assuring her that it didn't really matter what the receipt said as long as we were charged correctly for our bottled waters, we rushed out the door.  The street wasn't empty anymore, but there we still plenty of optimal viewing locations left.  And so we waited...  and snapped some pictures....  and ate snacks...




And waited some more...









Finally, it was 9:31.  The race was to start in 4 minutes.  And then, of course, a sweet little voice says, "Mom, I need to go potty."  Pippi was set up with the video camera.  Boo was situated.  The Burger King, holding the nearest bathroom was across the street and the race was about to start.  I knew I would not be able to get to that bathroom once the race had begun.  And I had no idea where another bathroom was, so I scooped up Boo, took Bardo by that hand, told Pippi I'd be back, explained what was going on to the mother-stranger sitting next to us and ran to that bathroom.  The line was long for the women's restroom, so Bardo was lucky to be a boy.  We were in and out, but by the time we got out the race had begun; Pippi was sitting alone across the street from me with a video camera carefully watching for her Daddy to run by.

I calmly (because I'm always calm) walked to a police officer, told her that my nine-year old was across the street, and asked that she let me know as soon as I could cross.  She got her partner, a really cool guy, who held out his hand to Bardo.  Bardo cautiously put his hand into the police officer's, and they carefully maneuvered us across the street.

Pippi was unperturbed by my absence.  But none of us had seen the Warlock racing, and it was clear that we would probably be late for viewing location #2.  So we walked until we saw the really fast runners heading toward the finish line.  On the way we saw this cup-o-saurus.


And hooray!  We soon saw the Warlock, running past Bail Bonds.


And there he goes, on his way to the finish line.  If you want the full race report from the runner's perspective you can get all the dirty details on Blackened Toenails.


If we do this race again, the Warlock's gonna have to come hunt us down when he's done because we're staying for the parade.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

There is something about being stranded in the street and far away from a rest room that makes children need to go potty. Remember the Vigilante Parade?