While looking at these photos, you should have this playing in the background:
So I decided that if I can’t beat ’em, if I can’t eat ’em, I might as well make ’em. So here’s my DIY-M costume for the Tampa Hot Chocolate 15K tomorrow:
And wouldn’t you know it? After cutting up the mailing envelope with the annoying seam in the middle, I did find a solid piece of white cardboard. But I had finished scissoring the day away… and honestly, I kinda love the crappy seam. I choose to embrace the crappy homemade-ness of it all.
I drove out to Tampa to pick up my packet as there is no race day packet pickup (swell). I made a tactical error and wound up on a Florida Toll Road for 0.75 miles when I could’ve taken the free interstate exit that ran parallel to this toll road. On top of that, I couldn’t find street parking so ended up paying $5 for “event parking” for the 34 minutes I was there. Of course, as I drove away, I found a veritable parking cornucopia of open metered spaces that no doubt would have been if not infinitely cheaper (as they wouldn’t have been free) but certainly SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper. Sigh… some days you just make a series of wrong decisions.
But here’s a few pics from the expo. I’m burned out on these things for sure… but did try and rally for a few “giant inflatable” photo ops. I even grabbed a “My First 15K” sticker because truth be told I’m not sure I’ve ever run an official 15K race distance. I’ve done a mile, some 5Ks, 10Ks, Half marathons, a fair number of Marathons, even a 51K but never a 15K. It’s like the 4K Friendship Run I’m looking to do in Tokyo. Just a different distance than I normally do.
I should also point out the course map for tomorrow.
I spent forever staring at this. I kept trying to figure out how we looped back around on the 15K to get the numbering system to work. Only later did I re-read the key and see the numbers along the 15K route are mile markers, not kilometer markers. So despite it being a 15K, they’re showing everything in the English system. I guess calling it a 9.32057 mile run doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Me? I’d love it if they called it that and slapped that on the swag.
So now I whistle while I pin my M to my shirt. As for my bib? I pin it to my shorts, not to my shirt… that was supposed to be a play on melts in your mouth, not in your hand but it definitely didn’t work. As I said, some days you just make a series of wrong decisions.