I’m wet, tired, and not at my best. This therefore will be a short, short update before I grab some dinner and curl up under the covers.
On a positive note, the medical crucible of running the Mississippi Blues Marathon has burned off SOME of the germs that plague me. I’m still sick but maybe oddly a little LESS sick than this morning. I know this may not be Hippocratic Oath approved (it does seem like running a marathon while sick WOULD do harm first, second, and 23rd). But really isn’t a fever just the body’s way of burning out the problem? So I used APPLIED science to make that happen, a medically induced and isotonic eccentric contraction oriented fever. So what I’m saying is that I would’ve made a kickass medieval barber.
I didn’t take a lot of photos today at the Mississippi Blues Marathon. It was too wet and I didn’t have dry fingers or a dry iPhone to try and get the camera app open. Plus I was just struggling to keep my head above water. Literally? I mean, it was raining and there were puddles but it wasn’t flash flood warning level (at least not in Jackson… I hear in other parts of the state though…).
I did however shoot this 2 minute video of the blues-riff National Anthem before the race. Sadly I think you hear the raindrops better than the guitar but, well, that’s the blues, man. That’s the blues.
Here’s a super soaked shot from the finish line:
I may add a few more details on Monday, maybe even dig up the pics from the last time I was here (which was, gulp, 5 years ago in 2013).
***
After trying to towel off a bit in my car, I set out on the 4+ hour drive to Gulf Shores to pick up my packet for tomorrow’s race. The expo was at a bar/restaurant on the beach known as “The Hangout.”
Maybe everybody in Gulf Shores is on island time or maybe I was just in a mood or a snit, but it was a markedly poor experience for me. I’m supposed to do the Blues2Beach challenge — I even have PDF proof that I ticked the box on my registration and paid the processing fee for this thing. Supposedly there was to be a wristband in my packet to wear to prove I ran the Blues on Saturday. Again, maybe I’m just tired from dashing down here and dealing with crazed motorists who can’t figure out they should turn on their headlights when torrential dumpster trucks of water are falling from the sky (it was worse than buckets… it was coming down in water towers!). But the volunteers gave me poor or unhelpful information and when I had to wend my weary way through the expo of vendors I was struck by the folks manning the booths being far more interested in their smart phones than in talking to me. Jackson, MS, was a place filled with gregarious and friendly folks who constantly thanked me for coming out to run… and this started at the expo and carried right through the rainy 26.2 miles this morning. In contrast, the Gulf Shores folks seemed to wish I’d just go away and not bother them.
I’ve sent an email to the race director summarizing the above and I’ll try asking more questions in the morning before the race but I don’t hold out a lot of hope of getting this resolved. Maybe I’m just not destined to get the Blues2Beach challenge. Maybe I should just go home. But I had a heavy lunch so need to run off some of that. I even posted this to Facebook — “I know you’re terrible for me, mayonnaise, but I just can’t quit you.”