Wardrobe Malfunction

I ran a Turkey Trot race, the Flying Feather Four-Miler in Dublin, Ohio, on Thanksgiving morning with two of my nephews from Columbus.  Now I can say that every one of my sister Kate's three sons has beaten me in a race.  (Below:  M and K flanking their proud Mom pre-race.)

The day started out cool and crisp so naturally I overdressed.  Perfectly comfy at the start, I was dying by MP 1, which we passed at about 9:15.

Stripping off my fleece jacket, I tied it around my waist and we hit the halfway mark at about 19:40.  The race course meanders through rolling wooded parkland in this suburb north of Colombus.

Both of my nephews were being extremely solicitous, running alongside of me.  I could tell that M, the live-at-home college sophomore who had been running nighttime miles getting ready for this outing, wanted to go on ahead, while K, the college freshman who is attending his university on a rowing scholarship, assured me that I was pulling him along.  Except that his words weren't coming out in ragged gasps like mine were.   

In my state of overdress, I was wearing leggings which were proceeding to slide off my hips despite me cinching the drawstring tight.  Just past MP 2 I had to stop, untie my jacket, hoist up my pants, tie the drawstring extra tight, refasten my outergarment about my waist and proceed.  Both young men waited patiently with me despite my urgings for them to go on.  (Below:  Clutching my finisher's bottle of wine with my malfunctioning leggings still sagging below my waist post-race.)

By MP 3 I was once again yanking my leggings up every three steps as they continued to slide down my legs.  Fearing that I would get entangled in my falling-down warmup pants and go sprawling amidst a horde of racers, I had to stop to tighten my leggings again.  This time M went on while K stayed with me, assuring me that he wouldn't even be running in the race if it weren't for me.  I chose to take his comment in a postive light.

Finally we could see the finish banner off in the distance and we picked up our pace and broke forty minutes.  My time was about 39:31, with K a second ahead of me and M about half a minute faster than that.

This was a cool race, with the goody bag containing a tech long-sleeve shirt, a race-logo hat and gloves, plus a shot of whiskey in an airline mini-bottle.  Each finisher received a full bottle of beaujolis to take home to his or her Thanksgiving dinner.