What the hell was I doing? I was told it would be fun. Just a quick run across the bay bridge. Hey, I'd crossed it before by car and it only took a couple of minutes. By foot, I figure it should take fifteen, twenty tops. No problem.
Sure, I'll run a marathon for those cute slow moving manatee sea-cow things. It's a worthy cause. (Okay, I did it for the T-shirt.) Now, I'm not exactly Jim Fixx when it comes to running marathons (which is good, cuz he's dead). But I've been known to occasionally tie on a couple of those leather things that cover your feet with the “Nike” logo on them and propel my body around on a flat surface for a while.
So, I figured I'd give it a try.
It started really early in the morning, like nine A.M. We parked at Tampa Stadium and were packed into Greyhounds like senior citizens from Ontario and bused over to the bridge we were to run across. By then, the sun was up, and it got hot. Perfect weather to be out overexerting yourself in. I made it about halfway before I coughed up an internal organ and had to slow to a walk, then to a hobble. The entire time, I was passed by 12-year-old punks running full out. (I expected to catch up to them later, but I never did. I knew I should have had Sugar Smacks® for breakfast, too.) I also got passed by six guys linked together pretending to be Santa Claus and five reindeer. Santa was running in a full costume, complete with beard. (Amazingly, he never exploded.)
Actually, I was passed by just about everyone, except those that had died of heat exhaustion. I barely had the strength to leap their corpses. By the time I crossed the finish line, it was considerably cooler, as the sun had already gone down. Needless to say, my time was nowhere near the leaders' time, which I think was something like 00:30:15:46.
