Pee before racing

24 Sep

5am. Ugh, time to wake up. I’ve been trying to get up at 5am for the last week so I can do some blogging and stuff before everyone gets up. Because by night time when the kids are asleep, I just can’t be bothered.

I got up at 5 about…well…fine, it was once. Humph. I’m still working on it.

But last weekend, we had to get up at 5 for a good reason: It was race day. Every time Aaron runs in a race, Hannah talks about how she wants to go in one and win her own medal. So we entered the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Family Fun run. 3.5 kilometers of Aaron running with Hannah/carrying her on his shoulders, me pushing Daniel in a pram.

We planned to get there with 15-20 minutes spare before the race started. That was, of course, before we saw the line for the elevator down from the train platform to the ground. I wasn’t the only one pushing a pram. Seems half of Sydney also decided to run the race with their kids in prams. And they all got off the train at the same time as us and needed to get down to the starting line. Sigh.

Me and Hannah on the train, ready for our race. Yeah, I totally wore my tennis skirt. And how cute is Hannah!?

Skirt Sports Women’s Gym Girl Ultra Skirt

I really needed to pee. Ok, I didn’t need to go that bad, but I knew I was about to run 3.5 kilometers, and we all know what happend that one time at the gym.

The bathrooms at the station were blocked off. I guess they didn’t want crazy lines right where people are leaving the ticket gates. That probably wouldn’t have worked so well. But I still wasn’t impressed. I needed to pee before the race darn it.

By the time we finally got out of the train station, it was 3 minutes til race time. We planned to high tail it straight to the back of the queue at the starting line, with a quick stop for me at the smelly, disgusting porta-potties. Or whatever they’re called over here.

Stepping out of the station only got us sucked into the extremely slow moving river of people all making their way to the park near the start line. Come on people, THREE MINUTES! Pick up the pace some! But no, they didn’t. Snails pace. With a giant pram, we had no way to get around the snails. Sigh.

Whatever, I can pee fast. I could just quickly duck to the bathroom and then catch up with Aaron and the kids and start the race.

Then I saw the lines. Sigh. Sure there were about a hundred porta-potties, but there were also like 4 people waiting for each one. Sigh.

“I’ll just have to run without peeing first.” I told Aaron.

“Do you have to go really bad?” he asked me.

“No. I just like to pee before I run.”

“It’s not like you have bladder problems, you’ll be ok.”

“THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I WANT TO PEE FIRST!” You know, just in case.

Bang! The race started. We weren’t even in the start line yet. We hurried as fast as we could and got to the back of the line.

I suppose we needn’t have worried. The line was quite long and until people hit the staring arch, they weren’t running. And half of them weren’t running after that either.

“In a few minutes, group C will join us.” We heard over the loudspeaker.

Oops. We were supposed to be in group C. The group for walkers and prams. Not that we planned to walk, but we did have a pram, so by default, that’s where we were supposed to be. Oh well, we were nearly to the arch over the starting line. Group B people, that we were accidentally in with, were supposed to be people who intended to run. I guess no one told them that. Sigh. More snail pace.

Finally, we rounded the bend onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and everyone was able to spread out. And we could start running.

Oh crap. Running with a pram is hard. And we were going uphill. Er….slightly.

Me running with the pram over the harbour bridge

Hannah ran and ran and then ran some more.

Daddy and Hannah running on the Sydney Harbour Bridge

I clenched and clenched and didn’t lose any pee. Phew.

After the bridge there were about 4 photographers waiting to snap everyone and then sell them their photos. Only these slackers were just standing there. They weren’t trying to take photos at all!

“Why aren’t they taking photos!” I yelled across to Aaron. “I want photos of Hannah running in a race! It’s all these moms who will want to buy photos of their kids, not the normal runners!” I wanted photos that weren’t taken with a crappy $50 point and shoot whilst pushing a pram and running backwards. True story. Any parent whose child is running in their first race is sure to buy the photos. Stupid photographers.

The last photographer must have heard me. He held his digital SLR with the giant long lens up to his face and aimed it directly at Aaron, Hannah, Daniel and me. Or I was stupidly waving while he was focused on someone else. (Turns out he was just pointed at me, with my stupid grin. Aaron was in there too, but Hannah was half cut off. Stupid photographers. Needless to say, we didn’t buy those.)

A little bit later, we crossed the finish line. Not with a very fast time, but with a very happy Hannah, and smiles on all of our faces. Oh, and with no urine in my underpants.

She was so excited to get her medal!

Might as well get our photo with a bear, right?

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