I’m still reveling in the high from last weekend’s accomplishment.
Even though I’m feeling great, I exercised some self restraint and resisted the urge to enter the OUC Half Marathon this weekend. No racing for me, but I still needed to feed my endorphin addiction. So, I showed up to take on the roll of cheerleader and photographer hoping to catch a good contact high from the more than 2000 runners who took part in the event. It worked.
I spent about 90 minutes standing on the finish line taking pictures and found the experience incredibly rewarding. I watched a thousand little micro-dramas unfold right before my eyes.
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- The joy of both first time finishers and experienced runners achieving new PR’s.
- The competition between perfect strangers as they approached the finish neck and neck struggling to out kick each other as if they were life long rivals.
- Couples and friends crossing hand in hand.
- A wipe out as spectacularly cringe worthy as any NASCAR accident as a runner tripped a few yards away from the finish line, slid belly first on the asphalt like a baseball player sliding into home, finally coming to a rest 2 feet from the finish line. Everyone held their breath for a few seconds until he lifted his head, shook it in frustration (and probably embarrassment), and then crawled across the line.
- Innumerable desperate sprints to beat the clock before it ticked off the next minute. It mattered little whether the clock time read 1:29:50 or 2:29:50, the frenzy intensified in the last 10 seconds of every minute.
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| Running for Two |
If you are interested, I uploaded many of the photos I took here:
