The U. of Iew

You know, I’m a night owl. It’s just my natural rhythm. It can probably be traced back to my time in the womb, since my ma always worked the graveyard shifts at Eastern Airlines. I was just born this way! So I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get to bed until around 4:00 a.m. the night (morning?) before the big race. We had planned on waking up at 6:45 a.m., but we overslept and didn’t get up until around 7:20 a.m. So we weren’t able to meet up with some co-workers at 8:00 a.m., as planned, but we did manage to get downtown and find a parking spot. Win! I was worried that parking would be much worse; maybe we just got lucky. At any rate, we only started the race about ten minutes late at 8:40 a.m. (the race started at 8:30 a.m.). That was probably for the best, since they recommended that families start the race just a tad later, since the older people might run and smother the littler ones.

My ma said that she heard on the news that they were expecting about 19,000 participants. I can definitely believe it! There were a ton of people there: men, women, children, and even some dogs. A lot of people were in costume: pink underwear, pink capes, and so on. It was really fun to see so many people coming together for a good cause. We even saw Grizzbee (the Utah Grizzlies mascot) and Ronald McDonald.

We finished the race in about an hour, which is great considering that we were walking with a 5-year-old in tow. We even managed to find some of our friends at the finish line.

The only downside to the day was my brush with the sun… my arms got a little sunburned but my neck is the worst. I think I had a touch of sun poisoning… oh, I’ve been miserable ever since. The last time it was this bad was when I visited a friend in Florida and had sun poisoning from a bad burn on my back. My poor back… the tips of my ears were pretty scorched, too. Needless to say, wearing a shirt is painful right now, so I’ve been wandering around in good ol’ wifebeaters. Unfortunately, I can’t wear one of those to work, so I guess I’ll have to dig up something with a relatively loose collar.

Aloe, Cortizone, and Solarcaine… nothing beats a nice, cold compress on my aching neck. In fact, I think I’ll make good use of a cold shower right now!

(By the way, I love that you can see a little white line around my neck… that would be from my necklace, which I wear daily. Win.)