#365grateful Post 65

Today’s little slice of “happitude” is...

An awesome night full of 5km runs in the pouring rain, checking out cute hipster boys and laughing at Macklemore lookalikes, finally going to Burger King, and mostly just tons of giggles. I love ending the day with a crazy happy heart!

Last year, Lexi and I decided to sign up for the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge which is a 5km run (in our case, walk) that a lot of big corporations take part in. We thought it would just be something fun for us to do together and that it would end up just being a good laugh. We weren’t wrong!

When we signed up for the race last year, we thought we’d still have loads of time to prepare for the big day and we fooled ourselves into thinking we’d actually train for it. But by the time race day arrived, we hadn’t trained at all and we were actually quite nervous. Despite our nerves, we left the office early with all the other runners and drove to Wanderers. Parking was a nightmare and we ended up walking quite a way to get to the event. Then, we struggled to find our company tent and once we did, we had very little time left to socialise with the rest of our colleagues who were participating.

We made our way to the starting point and stood around for what seemed like ages before the race actually began. We started off laughing and chatting all the way and trying to stay out of the way of all the serious runners who obviously hadn’t entered just for fun. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and sweaty bodies bumping into us but once the majority of the runners had passed us, it was a lot calmer... until someone stepped on the back of my shoe, causing me to walk right out of it and have to step out onto the sidewalk to put it back on. Lexi, in all the excitement, forgot to step out onto the sidewalk with me and ended up being carried along in the very large wave of walkers and joggers. After rushing to get my foot back into my shoe, I had to run like a wheezing lunatic to find Lexi again. Thankfully I managed to catch up to her and after a few, “I’m-so-glad-I-found-you’s” and “I-thought-I-was-going-to-have-to-walk-the-rest-of-the-way-alone’s”, we continued the race together.

Then it got dark and began to rain. It started as a soft drizzle which was quite refreshing after my light sprint but it soon began to rain hard and the large puddles made it difficult for us to see holes in the road. We slowed way down and tried our best to avoid the rivers of rain water that had begun flowing along the side of the road. We laughed in spite of the rain and we made up names for the other walkers and joggers that we saw around us, enjoying just watching the world go by. But after a while we became very silent.

I kept thinking about how sore my feet were getting after squelching around in my wet running shoes for so long and I started to feel cold and wish the rain would stop. But then I began to really feel the rain as it poured down over me. I felt as though I was being washed clean of something and it made me smile.

I looked over at Lexi and I noticed that she was smiling the same thoughtful smile.

“Are you okay, friend?” I asked.

She looked up at me.

“Yes, friend. I’m quite enjoying the rain now actually”, she replied.

“Me too” I said, “I feel like we should be having a good cry right now, but there’s nothing that I feel like crying about.”

“No, let’s not cry” she said with a giggle.

We laughed and carried on walking, chatting a little more as we neared the end of the race.

Once we reached the finish line, we were absolutely exhausted. We couldn’t wait to change out of our cold, wet clothes and into something warm and dry. We tackled the long walk back to my car, complaining all the way. We didn’t care who saw us take off our cold, wet tops and put on our warm hoodies. We did hear a few whistles though...

We decided to reward ourselves with a trip to the newly opened Burger King (probably not the healthiest choice after having just completed a 5km walk, but hey).

The queue stretched out of the door and into the parking lot but we stood there, chatting and watching the customers come and go, until we reached the front of the line. We managed to get a table behind some very cute hipster boys and we joked about asking them for their Instagram handles as opposed to their phone numbers since that would be the hipster thing to do; after all, phone calls are too mainstream, aren’t they? And then a Macklemore lookalike walked in with his boyfriend, who was carrying a handbag. And that was us. We laughed until we cried and after finishing our meal, we headed home.

I’m so glad that we entered the race and that it was such a blast. That was a very special evening for me to have shared with Lexi and I’ll always think of it fondly.

I’m not sure that I’d enter the JP Morgan again, especially not if the weatherman predicts rain... but that was definitely a night to remember!

Image property of Candice Curtis