arrival

new york city is roughly a two hour trip for me and I had planned to get to the race about an hour before the start of last saturday's race; however, I left home 20 minutes late and after speeding to make up some time (which I did in fact do), I hit traffic. I actually think it's fun to drive around downtown manhattan and elsewhere in nyc, but the getting into and out of new york city is a royal pain in the arse. some accident on the George Washington bridge going into the city had completely stopped out bound traffic and slowed to a crawl, traffic heading into town. I was dressed comfortably for the drive and had my running clothes in a bag. when the traffic slowed to stop and go, what should have been 10 minutes from my destination, I knew I was going to be cutting it close. there wasn't going to be time for the planned change of attire in a port-a-john at the race site. on to plan B. not that I had actually thought of a plan B, because I really hadn't considered the possibility of needing one. but one was created and I began the process of changing clothes while driving. so as I'm stopping and going with traffic - off with the flip-flops, on with the socks. off with the pants and underwear, on with the running underwear and shorts. and then the running shoes. I just kept hoping someone in a large truck or suv wasn't going to pull up beside me and look down at the show. yes, changing while driving is a tricky feat, but let me add that I drive a standard. this means every time you come to a stop both feet must be on pedals and can not be removed without using some combination of putting the vehicle in neutral and applying the parking brake (and hoping you can get your foot through whatever opening of clothing before traffic starts moving again). before I could even consider trying to change from the waist up, I was through the slow down and hurrying on my way. I parked my car half a block from the park on E 102nd st, did a quick glance around for meandering pedestrians, threw off my top, threw on a sports bra and running shirt, ran from my car to the registration table at a faster pace than I planned for the actual race, grabbed my race number, race t-shirt, and chip timer, ran to the port-a-john (too much gatorade consumption during the drive), ran to the race start, and hurriedly attached the number to my clothing and the chip to my shoe. I usually would have returned to my vehicle before the start of the race to leave my race t-shirt, but had I had the time to return to my car, I wouldn't have needed to change in the car, so the race t-shirt was still in hand. the idea of wearing two t-shirts just seemed too hot and the race t-shirt seemed too heavy/big to carry, so I stripped down to my sports bra (I think I exposed myself more on this trip than I previously have in my entire life) and replaced my running shirt with the race t-shirt. my running shirt was much lighter, made of much less material and hence, easier to carry. when all was said and done, I had an actual 4 minutes to catch my breath before the starting horn went off. *whew*