When what you ask for is what you get
I checked another item off my list ... but it almost didn't happen
Remember last week when I said I wanted to feel everything on my birthday? (Refresh your memory at the link below.)
Turns out I was lying.
A day after I posted those thoughts, I woke up in the middle of the night puking. This (and other things unmentionable) would continue for close to 7 hours. I couldn’t eat solid foods. I drank a lot of gatorade and water. I started to get my appetite back. And then my son threw up at school. And my daughter spent the next night puking.
All that to say, the days leading up to my planned participation in The Office 5K were questionable at best. I held out hope that I would be well enough to still make the trip, but I quickly abandoned any thoughts of running the entire thing. I worked on the finishing touches for my costume. I planned what I needed to pack.
By Friday night I had eaten two cans of chicken noodle soup. (I don’t care how much sodium or anything else is in them; nothing beats a can of chicken soup on a sick day.) I had to at least try.
And that’s basically my philosophy about goals. I’m not a must-achieve-at-all-costs-or-it’s-a-failure person. I care more about the attempt at the target—and that there is a target—than where the arrow lands.
And that’s basically my philosophy about goals. I’m not a must-achieve-at-all-costs-or-it’s-a-failure person. I care more about the attempt at the target—and that there is a target—than where the arrow lands.
My daughter made the decision, wisely, not to go with me. So, I packed up the car for another solo trip, this one just a day long, and headed to Scranton, Pa., more than two hours away.
The race was set to start at 1 p.m., so I had plenty of time, which is good because I need to stop often while I’m driving to circulate the blood in my legs and help ensure that no blood clots try to kill me again.
It was a beautifully scenic drive through the mountains and along the Schuylkill River through some small towns and rural areas. And then I was in Scranton, traveling on the President Biden Expressway into a downtown that reminded me a little bit of the first town where I worked as a journalist. It, too, was a steel town.
My first goal was parking. Parking—in any situation, no matter where—is my biggest stressor. If the parking situation is unclear when going to a new place, my anxiety becomes a loud hum in my head that almost makes me abandon the plans in the first place.
For the 5K, we race participants had been directed to an empty lot set aside for our parking needs. But with almost 1,500 people registered for the race, we’d been warned to get there early. I rolled into town around 11 a.m., unsure if I was early enough.
I was. The lot was a short walk to the downtown square where the race would start. I donned my costume shirt and set off to pick up my packet. I was early enough for this, too, that I didn’t have to wait in line. I picked up my bib and T-shirt and decided to register for the costume contest.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already seen my costume choice, but here it is in all its glory:
If none of this makes sense to you, then I’ll direct you to The Office tv series, season 5, episodes 16 and 17. Because it was literally my birthday, I planned my shirt around this theme, pulling quotes from the episodes and copying the decorations to wear on my body.
As far as costumes go, I was happy with my homemade choice and its uniqueness. I met a few other people with birthdays on the same day but I didn’t see anyone else with the same vibe. There were a lot of great costumes. You can check out the race’s official Instagram to see some of them. I’ll go ahead and tell you right now that I did not win a costume award (womp-womp) but that’s not why I did it anyway.
I took the T-shirts back to the car and prepared myself for what I would need for the duration of the race. And I sat in the car for a bit, just thinking about the drive and enjoying the quiet. I had eaten a little bit on the drive up. I was not hungry for much of anything, but I knew I needed some kind of fuel. A peanut butter granola bar and some grapes, along with gatorade and water were that fuel.
Around noon, I decided to head back to the square and see how things were ramping up. Plus, I needed to pee. And then it was a whole lot of waiting. And watching. This is when I met some of my new birthday pals. We fist-bumped and took pictures and lamented the co-opting of our special day by Star Wars.
Before long, it was time to line up and head out. I won’t bore you with the specifics of my running and walking plan. I did run some of the course, but it was pretty clear from the start that finishing the entire 3 miles was going to be the victory.
So, here’s what I saw along the way:
This was the first “attraction” along the route. We were all still pretty bunched up at this point.
This was the one I was waiting for. The iconic building featured in the opening credits. You can see that it says “Dunder Mifflin” on this side.
I didn’t do a lot of research prior to visiting Scranton, but apparently, you can visit the building. I did not.
Next up was this Dwight mural.
It’s on the side of a record store. A few people were just trying to buy records and wound up in the middle of a 5K. Oops.
There was a long break before another landmark from The Office appeared. But it was a good one.
This is on my list for a return visit. They have a gift shop themed for The Office and I’d like to actually eat something there.
By this point of the race, there was less than a mile to go, but the majority of the racers had already finished, so they started reopening the roads and we had to wait at intersections for a walk signal. Consequences of being a back-of-the-packer.
And then I was rounding the corner and crossing the finish line, and I had done it. I finished the 5K in less than an hour, which was my goal before I got the stomach bug and remarkable to me after I’d been sick.
There was a time in my life when these results would have caused me to feel bad about myself. The guy who finished the race in first place ran the whole thing faster than I ran the first mile. Seventy-year-olds clocked a better time than me. Those things don’t bother me as much anymore because every person’s journey and story and body are different.
I did what I came to do.
I stuck around for the awards and to hydrate after the race.
Plus Andy Buckley aka David Wallace was there in person and he was fun.
I had two more goals after the race festivities ended.
One: the sign.
It’s also featured in the opening credits of the show, but you can’t drive by it anymore. It’s in a shopping center.
Two, dinner. I ordered from a place near where I parked, ate some food and began the drive home.
I have now completed six of my 10 list items for the year. And I’m not done yet.
Congrats! And you got to see David Wallace!
Suck it!
(Sorry, couldn't resist . . . )