Trick or Trot 5k plus road ralley

"I'll find you something lacy tomorrow to make a veil. You are not

cutting up my curtains!"
~Mom

This is it, the weekend I've been looking forward to for weeks! The weekend where Angry was coming up to Boston! It's just like Christmas, only it's Halloween!

After work on Friday afternoon I touched base with Angry, who was already an hour outside of Boston and closing fast, an hour ahead of schedule. I scuttled over to MIT as fast as I could to meet him at the hotel. I got cozy in an arm chair in the lobby and set to work trying to read despite the teenagers from some inner-city upward bound/affirmative action program who were too excited about staying in a hotel with little supervision for the weekend to pipe down. Lookit me! Lookit me! all their unoriginal conversation seemed to be screaming. They were so loud I almost missed Angry's call. "Hi, uh, Claire. Yeah, I'm uh, I'm a bit lost. I'm... FUCK!... like by Fenway park on the wrong side of the river..." Angry's got road rage.
I had him describe where he was and how he got there, but I couldn't give him a reliable way to get to where I was. "Just, um, I don't know, cross the river. There are tons of bridges, you'll figure it out, then go left. If you hit Harvard turn around and come back." I hung up. Job well done, Claire. Back to my book.
Then, a little while later my phone rang again, "Um, I'm... WHAT THE FUCK!... sorry, I just went over the fancy bridge. Um, I think I went the whole... aw, come on, what the fuck is that?!... the whole way around Boston. Now I'm in Sommerville." Now I knew even better exactly where he was, but not how to get him to the hotel.
"Just get back on the highway in the other direction and look for signs for Kendell Square." You can't go wrong that way.
"I think I'm just going to go east, I'll hit it eventually," he assured me. East?! Who knows where east is, especially in a foreign city? I told him maybe he should try to stay close to the major highways. "I'll be there in 20 minutes, mark my words." Yeah right. But in 15 minutes there was Angry in the lobby. I bet he thought he was pretty smart for finding his way all the way to the hotel without directions, but I would put him in his place later (or the Massachusetts road system would, anyway). Soon after, his friend Alison arrived by train from Providence, RI and we went out for dinner and a stroll around the North End (the Italian district).

The costumes:

As you may already know, the theme of this race was to be dresses. Angry had put considerable effort into his costume of a beauty queen, ordering a tiara and custom sash ("Running Queen") online, going out to buy a cute black dress that showed off his fabulous (shaved) legs, and picking out a long, blond wig at a costume shop. I was to be a bride (or "runaway bride" since there was no avoiding it). My cousin had a $100 knockoff of a designer dress that she had ordered online from China which she had fully intended on wearing to her own wedding, but when she got it it was stained and the dimensions were fucked up (surprise!). She got her money back and I inherited the dress. We cut off about two feet of hem and train so I wouldn't step on it while running, and my mom went out and bought some white mesh stuff and attached it to a headband to save her curtains (I'd been joking, but I wasn't about to refuse a free veil). Alison, who had jumped in on the Trick or Trot plans late was going to run in scrubs.

Since I'd actually made a (minimal) effort on my costume this year, I wanted to do it right. I decided that I'd stick to the old tradition, "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." Something old: I had the headband for that, I'd had that since high school. Something new: I suppose you could count the "veil" since my mom had only just made it. Something borrowed: Well, the dress of course! (although I don't think Christie will want it back now). And something blue: Oh no. What could I... MY UNDERWEAR!!! I wore a blue sports bra, my blue superman chonies (the hole is fake, by the way), and blue socks.

Primping, etc. Pre-race:

The race was to start at 10:00 am. By 8:15 I was rolling into the hotel with running tights under my jeans, a running top under a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a wedding dress draped over my arm. As I entered the breakfast bar the hostess gushed, "Ooooh! Is that a wedding dress?!"
"Technically, but it's just my Halloween costume." Her face went dark and she went back to what she was doing without even waving me through.

Back in the room Angry tried to navigate the wig and dress while Alison spent a considerable amount of time strapping me into mine. Angry wouldn't stand still for a picture before pulling on his Underarmour jumpsuit over the dress, so all I got was this action shot. Luckily, it does manage to make him look kinda' glam. Unfortunately (for reasons that will be explained later), this is the only photo we got of Angry in a dress.

Sexy, no?

We piled into the car and all was going well driving over the Tobin Bridge in the fog towards Chelsea. It was alternating between raining hard and pouring and there was water pouring through the fissures in the upper deck of the bridge above us. "You're looking for the Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston exit," Angry read off the directions.
I looked up into the bridge's rafters and saw a sign that said Chelsea Next 3 Exits. Sweet! We went past two exits that definitely did NOT say Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston, the third said, Everett/ Webster St. Chelsea. "Is that it?! Webster St? I know the address we're looking for starts with a W."
"No, it's on Willow," said Angry.
The next exit was for Revere Beach. This definitely was not right. Crap. "Okay, guys, which of the three exits we passed looked the most promising? We're going to turn around and try it again." We decided on the Webster St. exit, but the highway went on and on, "What, there are no more exits?!" I asked.
"Why don't we just go to the Museum of Science," suggested Alison. "It's raining."
We turned around the first chance we got and wouldn't you know, on THIS side the exit was called Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston. "What did I tell you?!" I said triumphantly. "Just because you have an exit in one direction in Boston, doesn't mean you get the same exit going in the other direction. It's not just me!"
We pulled off. "Okay, now if we were supposed to take a left off the ramp before, then we'll want to take a right off the ramp now," deduced Angry. It seemed like a good idea, but we drove quite a ways and weren't finding the streets we were supposed to.
We turned around. "Okay, now we can go under the highway and see what the exit ramp looks like on the other side," I suggested. "Then we can figure out what we were supposed to do." It was a good plan, but there WAS no exit ramp on the other side. We found ourselves surrounded by one way streets and do not enter signs.
"How much are we betting that we don't get there," asked Alison. "I'm betting a dollar."
We drove along a main street for awhile looking for street signs that matched our directions, but to no avail. Without consulting the man of the car I pulled into a gas station to get directions. I drove in front of the garage as half a dozen grease monkeys watched me try to find a parking space. "Oh, god, Claire, you don't have to do it all proper like!" whined Angry. "Just stop the car somewhere!" But I found a spot in the corner and we sent out Alison, the most vociferous of the group to ask directions.
"Let me guess, you're lost," said the attendant before she could even open her mouth. But he gave us simple directions to follow. One problem though, a big SUV had parked blocking half of my exit rout out of the corner that I'd insisted on parking in, and Angry and Alison had to talk me through a 14-point turn.
"This is like Austin Powers," Angry pointed out, more out of embarrassment than mirth.

Pre-Race:

We pulled in with minutes to spare and raced in to sign up. In the Boys' & Girls' club gym we got an eyeful of our fellow competitors. Few were old enough to vote, or even get a library card without their mother's permission, and worse hardly anyone was wearing a costume. There was one woman wearing an orange tank top with an off-center jack-o-lantern face drawn on with sharpie, and that was the best costume I noticed. "Um, I thought that this would be a Halloween thing, since it's called Trick or Trot and all?" Angry asked the portly middle-aged woman at registration. "I'm wearing a dress under this."
"Oh, that's great!" fawned the woman, and began flirting with Angry like a 16-year-old girl. Why are so many women so turned on by a man in a dress?

We were pressed for time and barely had time to get rid of unwanted layers and chuck them in the car before it was time to go to the start. Angry couldn't live without his warmup, so he did a few laps around the parking lot in the rain while I let my warmup be the dash back to the gym to wait it out with Alison. I decided to leave the camera in the car rather than carry it the whole 5k just for a few action shots.

"Alright, it's not getting any drier, folks," announced the MC. "It's time to get out there!" Everyone held still for a picture that they assured us was going to be in USA Today (Angry and I conspicuously the only ones dressed up), and then the MC started making announcements. "Now when youwah in the pahk with the watah on yuh left..." he started to say. "When youwah in the pahk with the watah on yuh left..." Angry mimicked the accent.
I smacked him, "Quit being a tourist from Connecticut!" I said loud enough for all the people around us with Boston accents around us to hear. "You don't do that here!" Chelsea's one of those neighborhood where you get a lot of Boston accents, and where you don't want to be making fun of the people for any reason. With announcements done, it was just a ready, set, go! and we were off. "Bye Angry!" I yelled after 10 seconds, before he was out of earshot.

The Race

If the Chelsea waterfront sounds picturesque to you, let me assure you that this is not why they chose this location. The course passed some giant fuel tanks, an enormous mound of white lime dust, a drawbridge (the kind that looks industrial, not quaint), and a sheet metal warehouse. The volunteers, however, were wonderful. There were people in costumes or trash bags or costumes and trash bags at every available intersection and everyone yelled their hearts out. I drew quite some attention with my costume and got plenty of comments that made me smile about being late to the chapel or being accused of running from the altar.

Alison agreed to take it slow with me and it was fun to see all the kids starting off like jackrabbits and fading fast. One little girl darted by us after only about 50 meters. "Slow down, honey, you still got 3 miles to go, that's a long way!" urged her mother. We caught up with her about 50m later. "What, tired so soon?" The mom was asking. "How about instead of walking we do a nice, easy jog like this?" At about 1 mile we passed a couple of teenaged boys. One was clutching his side with the other arm in the air dramatically. He let out a quite effeminite moan and gasped, "No, no more running! I'm walking from now on!" I insisted on going easy to save my legs for tomorrow, but we picked off more and more minors as the race went on.

The rain had let up considerably, but my veil was really weighing down the headband and pulling it to the back of my head. Every few minutes I had to pull it off, flip the "lace" in front of my face for a few seconds and try to put it back on. But the material kept sticking to my wet face and it was hard to get the headband to stay still in my wet hair. I decided that I at least had to cross the finish line looking pretty.

This was the first time they'd ever held this event, and the MC's weird-unmarried-uncle sense of humor was a little worse than most. "And here, we have our winner in the bride division!" he announced as I turned the corner into the home stretch. Alison had gone ahead, but I was running right on a guy's heels. I could have easily out-sprinted him, but I decided to let him go and save a little attention for myself. I shuffled towards the finishing shoot and 10 feet away I stopped. "Ladies and gentlemen! The bride didn't make it!" Now, of all the things he could have said! I mean, I was 10 feet away, I was still standing, and I think it was pretty clear that I was going to make it.
"I gotta make myself pretty!" I yelled, and pulled off the veil. I made a big show of putting it on right and threw the lace back over my head dramatically. I flipped some material over my shoulder with all the attitude I could muster, made my entire body seem to give a proud "Hmph!" and trotted across the finish line in a leisurely 30 minutes, 30 seconds.

Me and Alison after the race. My gut's not that big, it's just the dress and the way I'm standing!

Angry and Alison were there watching me finish, but to my dismay, Ms. Running Queen had changed back into his Underarmour jumpsuit. He claims it was because of the rain and the wet, and I don't blame him, all the runners hanging around the finish were literally steaming in the humid air (really makes you appreciate how much fluid we lose by sweating!). But I have a feeling that the real reason he changed was that he didn't want to be standing around in the 'hood in a dress, tiara, and sash that said "Queen". When I ran back to the car to get my camera, there was his wig, tiara still on, flung inside-out in my back seat and the dress crumpled on the floor. I hope he doesn't treat all his women this way!

The drive back was even more eventful than the drive out. It took us some 20 miles to find a major highway again. Driving back through Chelsea we smelled sulfur. "Ugh! What's that!" said Angry rolling down the window.
"Rolling down the window won't do anything, Angry, the smell's outside," I laughed.
"What the fuck is that?!" yelled Angry, pointing at two dozen cars driving right at each other.
"What? You guys don't have rotaries in Connecticut?" I asked.
"I think I saw one once," said Alison from the back seat. I'd said earlier that it wasn't my driving that was the problem, it was the Boston roads; I think I proved my point. The adjective of the day they used to describe the roads was shitshow.

I think that the coolest thing about this race was all the kids. It was a small-time deal with no chips and only between 50 and 60 participants, most of whom weren't runners. But the fact that all the non-runners were in middle and high school and probably came from non-running families was what made it so cool. Nearly everyone outside our party was probably a member of the Boys' & Girls' Club that sponsored the event. Probably all those kids were proud of themselves today, and if it weren't for this race I'm sure that not many of them would have ever dreamed about participating in any sports if it wasn't the NBA or NFL.

At lunch our topic of conversation came back to kids. Angry was going off about how he can't wait to settle down and start making babies so that he can be a stay-at-home dad. "But the only women who like me are middle-aged married women like that fat lady at registration."
"Just wait a couple more years, Angry," I said. "Then the biological clocks of the women our age will start ticking and that's when you'll hit paydirt!" He asked me to include that quotable in my post.

After that there was nothing left to do but check out of the hotel and say our goodbyes since Alison didn't want me to get a Science Museum pass for her from the library after all. All-in-all it was a great visit, I can't wait to do it again... TOMORROW!

Anyone in the northeast down to do a Turkey Trot somewhere in southern New England this Thanksgiving? I'm game!

Coming soon:
A post on chafing and a very special feature. I'll give you a hint: