komen race report

well, I raced for da cure, along with 20,000 other people, and, I gotta tell you, I was the only freakin BALD person I saw. What is UP with that?

Anyway, the run was fun. We got there early, and there was a disco warm up of sorts on the 72nd street transverse which was kinda cool. The race itself was packed, and we started on 77th st & central park west, headed up to 90th street and cut into the park, where we ran down to 59th street, over, and back up to 72nd street. I ran with the Ex, and, after we got free of the crush of people, we went at a decent pace (well, between 9 & 9:30 min mile) for about 2 miles, because just running with so many other people was so hypnotic that I forgot to be tired for a while. I mean, it felt like the jog it was, not a run at all. Then, suddenly I got REALLY winded at 59th street, on the curve going back up to 72nd, so I walked for about a minute, then started running again and was fine to the finish. I didn't want to take the walk break, and I think my exhaustion was mostly kinda this psychological overwhelmed thing, but, at any rate it didnt' take much out of our time. We ran the whole thing in about 30 minutes. So, crappy time for a real runner, but ok for chemo grrl and the Ex, who could have gone faster but wanted the glory of running with CHEMO GRRRL the bald celeb.

At the finish line, I was pulled over by the People With Cameras who made me say something, and asked me a bunch of questions like "how many years?" which, in some other contexts would mean, "how many years have ya been off da stuff?" or "how many years did you get?", but which inthis context means "how many years ago did you have DA DISEASE?" I spluttered something about how i was in middle of chemo and the woman asked me how i felt and I said "tired". I guess that wasn't the best answer, considering the guts and glory of the whole damn thing, but, sheeeyite man I just wanted to stretch and go hit the goody tents. Which we did.

There were lots of hugs and cheers, which, I think I'm immune to because of my years of being a performer, b/c i'm pretty jaded about such things. My only thought was, "could I have gone faster?" followed closely by "when do we eat?"

There were some men in pink tshirts too, proving that men actually get breast cancer. It was cool to see them there, it tempered the Lilith festival atmosphere of the whole thing. That and the fact that there were 2 giant, balloon-constructed, pink, i kid you not, phallus shapes dominating the stage where they handed out the awards. hmmm. am I the only one who noticed that? Maybe they are gonna use those for the next testicular cancer race....