The Great Race

Soon after this was taken, Buggy was given a free race shirt because the man thought she looked cold. Reminds me of a site my friend Sam showed me: www.thatbabylookscold.com

I'm not exactly sure how the race got its name. Kellie and I ran today in the Great Race 10K this morning and, aside from it being a breezy 6.2 miles of mostly downhill running, I could've lived without it. I'm saying this probably because Rob took the morning off from the zoo and got to see none of the race. Before the start, he took a very hungry mumpo Olive back to the car to meet up with Mike and the kids, whom he was going to follow to the finish so they could park and wait for us. Kellie and I met up just before the race began, and we struggled to run through to swarm of other runners (and walkers). The crowd never really dispersed as I was used to it doing in the marathons I've run; we spent the race dodging and weaving in and out of the way of other runners, and I feel like much of the scenery was lost to the careful maneuvering that had to be done. When the final mile was called, I picked up my pace (I'd long since separated from Kellie, who's always kept a faster pace than me), knowing I'd soon get to see Rob and Buggy at the finish line. When I rounded the corner and crossed the line, I scanned the spectators that lined the track, looking for them. Neither were to be found, and nor were Kellie, Mike, or their kids. I squinted around for them for nearly thirty minutes, feeling like a lost toddler in a department store, until my eyes finally lit upon Mike - an angel from above! Other than that time he showed up to marry my sister, I'd never been happier to see him.  He told me that Kellie was circling around looking for me (she'd finished about ten minutes before me, at just under 51 minutes), and that Rob was still probably circling the downtown area looking for parking, having refused to follow him into the paid parking garage. I called Rob to tell him to sit tight (easy, as he was sitting in stopped race-related traffic) and that I'd meet him at the car. I felt badly for having him cancel an eventful morning at the zoo to drive around Pittsburgh for several hours, missing my race entirely. It seemed a waste, but his attitude about it was characteristically optimistic. Maybe they call it the Great Race because of the sheer number of participants it attracts.

To harken back to a previous post, I wanted to share some imagery of the new additions to Olive's little mouth. Please forgive the garish flash; it was necessary to clearly capture what was happening amidst the wriggling.