Ran today a 5K race in Surfside, north of Miami Beach. This was the first time I run an event rogue, without a number and a chip. I came like 10 minutes before the start and the lady who took registrations kept on saying. “The registration is closed. I am really sorry I cannot register you any more.” I had the money in hand but it was no help to argue with her. “What if I just run without a number?” “You can always run but you won’t get a time.” “Ok”
I really didn’t know what to do. There was a some kind of Valentine Day’s opening ceremony and then the participants packed onto the line. It wasn’t a big event, just about a hundred runners or so. Should I run along or just get to the shoreline and jog the three miles back to our apartment? “Go!” … Well, there I was at the end of the pack, gearing up, feeling like… their fault! I am not going to get punished from running in a free country. Let’s see if I could have even raced here.
I jump pass the slower runners, some 100m behind the leaders. They were not running that fast. I catch them at about 1K. At 1 mile I see it is like 5.50 so I decide to pass them all. But then this one guy goes berserk. He doesn’t want me to lead, sprints like it would be the finishing line! Wow, this is going to be a race after all. I catch him a bit later, at maybe 2K, pass, and at 2M I see the last one went in 5.29. Pretty good on soft sand. I ease up and let the challenger to catch me and run along with him to the finishing line. Not a full effort, I just couldn’t win as it would have been a bit awkward to do it without the number.
“Where’s your chip?” “What’s your number?”. “They didn’t give me one, so I was his pacemaker” I utter pointing to the winner. I thank him for the race and get directly to the shoreline to jog back. Sun is breaking up. Gentle waves hit the beach. Feels good.