Oh Bloody Hell

Let's not take this race too seriously, shall we.

The last few weeks I've been getting Flying Pig "email blasts," each one more annoying than the last.

"17 Days to the Pig!"
"16 Days to the Pig!"
"7 Days to the Pig!"
"6 Days to the Pig!"
"5 Days to the Pig!"

I'm quick to delete these pesky little bastards. Though not quick enough to prevent them from making me anxious.

The Flying Pig is one of my favorite things ever. I live for watching it every year. I get really into cheering for people I don't know, and even more into cheering for people I do know. I take photos , mobile blog, conduct post race interviews. I take spectating seriously.

But not this year. This year I'm running the relay.

I'm the charity case of my team.

One of my teammates just finished Boston with a PR. I'm like, totally honored to be on a relay team with her. Another teammate is training for her first Triathlon in addition to ohhh, just going out and running 8 miles on Saturday after being sick for two weeks. And my other teammate, Scooter Dean (he was a last minute addition after another coworker pulled a hammy - that's funny, saying that someone pulled a "hammy"), can easily go out and run six miles. This is a dude who I was surprised to learn owns running shoes.

Me, not so much. Running sucks. I suck at it. I've tried to make amends with running, come to an agreement that while I like the shoes and the feeling afterwards, I'm not much of a runner. I like to think I was much better before chemotherapy stripped off all my muscle mass, but that's probably just an excuse for always having been sucky at it.

I'm in two running groups. One during the week with work peeps, another one with friends on Saturdays. Of the 50 runs my training plan called for when I started, I skipped 21 of them, mostly during the weekdays. I figure if this whole running thing isn't followed up with a greasy dinner at O'Bryon's there's no point in me going.

The Saturday runs I attend because there's too much guilt involved in not going, but again, it's all about downing a latté and eating quiche afterwards.

"How was your run, Gina?"
"Who cares! Where's my vanilla soy latté?"

Last week one of the guys in my weekday running group said, "I can't really burn you about running Gina because I've never seen you run."

Ouch. I had to hose myself down with Solarcaine after that one. But it's kinda true. I go to running "group" during the week and never run with the group. I'm too slow. I walk too much. It's too humiliating. (Because in my mind I'm still the track star I was as a freshman.) And every time they pass me, I'm walking. Because I'm almost always walking.

Daaang, it's hot, I better walk. I need a tissue, I better start walking while I think about how to score one. Ooh, uphill - time to walk! This song is interesting, I need to walk so I can think about the lyrics.

Obviously I'm not very committed to actual running. But I'm very committed to the idea of running, so that counts for something, right?

Thankfully, my relay teammates could care less if I walked the whole thing. The Boston marathoner, the triathlete, the scooter-riding non-athlete - so long as I'm there to take the chip and put in my miles they seem to care less.

Whew. 'Cause that would be really awkward if they were hoping for a good finishing time.