87. La Carrera de La Mujer.
“I am made of a strength I didn’t know I had.” YES!
This is the one that really deserved its own entry. This “race” belongs in a category all its by itself!
22,000 women. All in hot pink shirts. Most of whom had NO idea what they were doing.
So my friend Sara and I met to pick up our goody bags from the Corte Ingles (the department store where you can get anything and EVERYthing you could ever imagine), literally wading our way through the flooded streets of Madrid, the rain POURING down.
The goody bags should have been our first clue to the atrocity of this race. Milk with added fiber (40%!), vag cleanser called Chilly that smells like IcyHot (just the sensation I want down there, of COURSE!), and alcohol-free beer in a pink can. We also got a slap bracelet. And a magazine from August 2011 (now that’s class!). And large t-shirts, because they were out of all the other sizes.
Race day, everything started well. There was a really well organized “guardarropa.” (I don’t know the word for that in English… Clothes check?) Anyway, the place where you dump your stuff so you can run. We took our last pre-race potty stop and headed to the starting line.
From there, things started deteriorating. There were corrals for runners, and Sara and I had hoped to run. But there were SO MANY WOMEN we couldn’t. But silly me, I thought, the crowd will thin out and I will finally get a little bit of my own turf to run on. Nope. 7.5 Kilometers of wall-to-wall women. It was beyond frustrating.
Women sharing iPods, er, headphones. Getting elbowed, pushed, shoved, cut off. Having my headphones ripped out as I was pushed up against a fence. Weaving in and out of women who were out there for a joy walk. Running around 5, 6, 7 women abreast. Strollers. Bikes. Kids! Lots and lots of kiddos. Dodging tourists in Sol. Running around the metal posts that keep cars from going on the street (those things can really jack up your shins!). And I use the word “running” loosely. I was going at a glorified walking pace. I mean, I was swinging my arms as if I were running, but I was mostly not. I finished 4 minutes shy of my 10K PR. Not okay. And this was only 7.5… As I crossed the finish line (finally!), 4 women literally came to a complete stop in front of me. Beats the heck out of me as to why. But I leaped to one side to avoid running INTO them.
Sara and I laugh every time we talk about this race, about what a total fiasco it was. At least it was something we did together. ;)
Megan joined us to run this race too.
la rubia en españa 