My personal Pride

This weekend I ran the Pride 5K in Washington Park with one of my greatest ally’s.  I don’t usually participate in Albany’s Pride events. I understand but don’t personally love being gay as a common commonality. It’s the same reason I don’t go to the St. Patrick’s Day parades. I’m Irish but it’s not a need for all Irish people to be in one place. The other reason I don’t like going is how Pride is associated with alcohol for a lot of my gay friends. So the fact that I could run a race with one of my closest friends (and the first person I ever came out to) was a good way to celebrate Pride. 

Saturday was rainy, hella rainy. I woke up and met my friend at her place and her boyfriend drove us to the race start. We got our numbers, took our race photos and stretched. We knew we’d run walk it, I knew my leg was tight and my foot might go numb. A bunch of people didn’t show up because of the rain but I was ok with that. It was nice running a race with 90 people compared to crowds of 9,000, 4,000, or 15,000. I started out in the back, I knew I was looking at least 47 minutes and I was ok with that. 

The rain tapered off and was misting when we started. My drunk cloud throwing up a rainbow was my Pride shirt for the day. It was cool and offered a nice day for running.  When we were approaching finishing our first mile I looked at my tracker. It was 13 minutes. I was running a 13 minute mile. I reached the end of the first lap just as the winner was crossing the finish line. The police car “woop woop” made me run a little faster. But we started our second loop and had to walk a bit of it. I was ok with that and so was my friend. We challenged ourselves with little distances to run and then we’d walk. 

When we got to the top of the hill where the finish approach was I tapped my application for my power song (yes I know I am corny) and I paced my running down the hill. I looked at my clock it was 39 minutes. I ran down the hill and into the chute. The clock said 41:33. That was a new personal record. It was even faster than my Turkey Trot run which was 44:57. 

I was elated with that time. It was a nice boost to have going into these next few weeks where I can’t run. So I’ll bike to keep my endurance up and stress off my leg, and there will be more dance rehearsals too. It’s going to be crazy but I think it will be good.