Elbow to Elbow

Well, the Savannah Bridge Race was this past Saturday. I left work early to head to Savannah before dark. My sister and her friend (Maya) and I went to dinner at the Driftaway Cafe. I had a wonderful parmesan and crab encrusted grouper, very tasty. For dessert we stopped by Lovin' Spoonfull. A frozen yogurt place similar to Yogli Mogli. Trix and Cake Batter, yummy! Then we headed back to my sister's house to work on our race costumes. We decided to call ourselves the Merry Misfits. We had Santa, Rudolph and 3 elves. My costume didn't take much work so most of the night was spent sewing and gluing items for the elf outfits. We woke at 5:30am and left at 6:30am (we had last minute costume things to do) and picked up another friend (Dawn) and headed to park the car. Santa (Yvette) met us and we got in line to for the trolley that would take us to the start of the race.

That's right people, we had to wait in line to get to the start line. This took a rather long time and the race was supposed to start at 8:15. By the time we loaded off the trolley we all had to use the facilities. A row of about 10 porta potties awaited us. It was a long line and let me just tell you, the horror stories surrounding porta potties are based on fact! I'm still scarred by what I saw. Anyway, we all walked to the end of the line and waited for the race to start. There were so many people there. I was completely shocked and overwhelmed. There were at least 3 thousand people ready to race.

I decided not to run for a few reasons: 1) running elbow to elbow with strangers is not something I'm used to, 2) my excitement about running stopped about 10 minutes into waiting in line for the trolley, 3) we were staying for the after party and I don't like to stand around in my sweaty clothes for hours, this is for the benefit of others as well as myself (yuck!). There were lots of people in costumes. I was under the impression that it was group costumes only but there were several individual costumes.

Yvette (Santa), Michanne (Elf), Me (Rudolph), Maya (Elf), and Dawn (Elf)

We saw eight cute/slutty reindeer, a few Santas, two sets of tortoise and hare, beaker from the Muppets, Mrs. Pacman, a Christmas tree, a girl dressed up as an Avatar (from the movie Avatar), bacon and eggs, and a political group that included Bush, Palin, Obama and 3 secret service agents, to name a few. We did not win. The political group won. $400. They were indeed hilarious but they didn't put much effort into their costumes. No late night sewing for them. It was fun and all the Merry Misfits finished in under an hour. The after party was a nice idea for people to mix and mingle and a lot of people took our pictures. The band was pretty terrible but everyone seemed to enjoy the free beer.

This is me and Maya listening to the The Trainwrecks (and boy were they ever) and me scratching my forehead. I think my skin was allergic to those antlers and I rubbed my forehead raw. I have a very thin scab now. I enjoyed a greasy and delicious chili cheese hot dog and french fries after the race. I headed home around 2:30pm and was dead tired before I even got to the house. Would I do this again? Ask me again in a year. That might be enough time for me to adjust to the difference between a Milledgeville 5K and a Savannah 5K.