An Affair to Remember

On June 18th, I participated in the 2011 Edmonton Underwear Affair.  A charitable run/walk in which participants raised money towards below the waist cancers, and also raised awareness by dressing up either in their underwear, or in underwear related costumes.

Here's this year's site.

Some of you know that I made an interesting costume for the occasion, and fewer still know that I took home the 'best male costume' prize!  Here is my getup.

It's made of nothing more than foam, glue, and felt, and the socks are from my childhood football team.  Go Bombers!

Here is one of the literally dozens of photos that were taken of me with other groups clamoring to be seen with the giant underpants

It was a pretty great day, especially thanks to my brother and another couple friends of mine who showed up to help me move around and get things done in this monstrosity.  My prize was a bag full of about $250 worth of boxers and underwear from the sponsor, Joe Boxer, of which probably one or two pairs will fit, seeing as how I am a large man, and not a medium man.  But I also got a sweet plaque, so it's all good.

Now onto the good part!

After days of debate and weighing the pros and cons, I decided not to do the actual 10km run whilst wearing the suit.  The clincher was the fact that it was already falling apart just from walking around in it all day.

So after already standing around and posing for photos for a couple hours at least, we then endured the costume contest.  As I have said, I won the best male costume award, BUT, there was also:

Best Female Costume

Best Superhero Costume

and
Best Team Costume

The last of which had about 15 teams entered, who all had to go on stage and strut their stuff, and then all had to get a vote to see who won.  The point I am coming to is that around this point, I was debating on going to the lavatory or not.  Basically, I had been standing around nervously for a few hours, and just before the run, I didn't have to go, but I had this sudden doubt of security in my bowels, if you know what I mean.  I then shrugged it off, however, saying to myself, "It's one hour.  Just one hour out of the whole day that I have to not go to the bathroom.  I will be fine."  Big mistake!  But we'll get back to that...

~~~

A few weeks before the run, I tried a 10km run solo, just to see if I could even do it.  It seemed ridiculously far when I typed my imagined route into Google Maps, but it turns out I had to run even farther!  About 30 streets and 8 avenues rectangular rounded out 10kms.  But, surprisingly to me, I hit only one or two small walls that day, had a great pace, and polished off the run in just over one hour.  About 1:05 I think.  I decided that my race day goal should be no less than no more than an hour.  59:59.  Especially with all the cheering, camaraderie, and a lack of traffic lights to stop for, I thought I would do even better than that.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here's a map of the race day route.

The runner's route (as opposed to the 5km walkers) is everything red, which is most of it.  The yellow building marks the start and is a building in our University area called the Butterdome.  I think it might be called that cause it's a big yellow brick of a building.  And now, on to the drama.  Follow along on the map if you dare...

As we round the corner immediately following the starting line, everything is fun and exciting!  Nobody can really run at all, because there are something like 6 or 7 hundred runners!  Then as we come to the next right, located at the bottom left most corner of the map, things are thinning out gradually, and I find I am passing most people at my unrushed pace.  Things are good!  Though most people there didn't know about common running courtesy, like not running side by side when you are a group of ten going really slow.

On the map it's quite hard to see, but that congested area that comes next is actually a hairpin turn for the runners, and the place where the walkers go on their separate shorter way straight through.  So we all turn sharp left and go down a long steady hill all the way to that tree that says Emily Murphy park by it.  I went as fast as gravity would take me down this hill, and passed a lot of people.  I thought I might as well use the hill since I would have to climb back up a hill somewhere later on.  Things were just great!  I was going to break my hour mark easily!  But then....

guuuurrrrggggllllle  ka-DUNK

A roughly transcribed onomatopoeia does not do justice to the terrifying sound and even more horrifying feeling that came over me just as we were approaching that first bridge.  The dam of fiber and comfort in my digestive system had apparently collapsed, and suddenly, I was in severe need of a certain kind of facility located all over most University areas.

It was quite amazing really.  The suddenness.  Only twice before can I recall a time where my body had gone from 'everything's good' to 'toilet NOW' in only moments.  Both previous times were immediately following cheap wings night at Original Joe's.  Incredibly, the nightmare I have had every night before every sporting event I've ever participated in in my entire life had come to fruition in this beautiful late Saturday afternoon.  I needed a toilet, and I needed it now.

As you can tell on the route map, at this point in the race, I am only somewhere between 2 to 3 kilometers (.62 miles is one kilometer) into my 10km race.  At first I try to mentally suppress the problem.  Focusing on the specific muscles and sphincters (sorry if this is all too graphic, but, you're still reading!), trying my best to hold it off until after the race.  It was no good.  I even passed by the only outhouse I was sure existed along the route, telling myself that it was too far off and I would come in last if I went to use it.  What a mistake that was!

About halfway down the bridge I started to walk briskly instead of run.  I was in bad shape.

Now we're about halfway down the long stretch along side the river.  I'm still walking, and look who so selflessly (not selfishly, SELFLESSLY) decided to drive along the route and find a place to pull over and cheer me on.... my brother and nephew!  In the distance they could see me walking, as I said before, briskly, cheering me on to run further, to fight for the cure!  Only when I reached them and awkwardly whispered the real cause of my fatigue did the truth epiphanize itself on my brother.  At which point he laughed and we tried to conjure up some kind of solution to my ever growing problem.  Every once in a while, I would try to run some more.  No dice.

Despite my desperation, I decided the best thing to do was keep walking in hopes of an outhouse especially designated for the runners right along the trail, and behold!  Somewhere after kilometer 6, on the map, it was at that very North East corner, there was a water station tent in sight!  And I knew as soon as I saw it, that they had set up port-o-johns somewhere nearby.  Perhaps it was the good Lord comforting me, but without seeing them yet, I just knew.  And sure enough, there they were!

Three glorious green portable toilet stations!  Complete with clean seats, plenty of toilet paper, and even hand sanitizer for afterwards!  They were even off of the trail just a hair so that you felt a kind of privacy while using them.  Needless to say, I was pretty pleased!  And just as soon as I had dropped my shorts... well, you probably know the rest!

About ten or fifteen minutes later, that's right, 10-15, I hopped out of that toilet, and started sprinting as if there was a raging bull behind me.  I was lighter, and amazingly free to run without restraint!  And I had lots of time wasted walking and, doooing other things to make up for in the last 4 kilometers.

Finally, after passing many people who's fatigue had got the better of them, I came up to the last straight away, and sprinted as hard as I could for that last half km.  And as I crossed the finish line, I read "1:13:**" on the clock, and realized the incredible significance.

If I had not walked for 4kms, or spent at least 10 minutes sitting still, I would have achieved my goal!  Those final four kms were probably the fastest four kms I have run in my life.

But the lesson in this story, the point I want you all to take home with you, and always remember in the hard times of life, is not that I ran the race well in the end, or that I should have gone to the bathroom before it started (though good lessons they are), no the real importance and significance, the height at which to set your own bar in your lives, the truth that cannot be denied!  Is that I did not crap my pants.