Turkey Trotting and Rule Following

It's Katie reporting from Southern California.

Jacob's Uncle Tom and Aunt Martha make a tradition of turkey trotting at Dana Point on Thanksgiving morning. They've been very unofficial about it in recent years which means we kinda just jump in with the joggers. This is the third year we've done this.

This year I got kicked out by a race official because I wasn't sporting a number.

OF COURSE this would happen to me.

I'm so royally afraid of breaking any and all rules; Jacob teases me incessantly about this. He's no big time rebel, but he has no problem breaking rules in, what he deems, harmless ways. He grew up camping and building fires and swimming where he wasn't supposed to. He listened to contraband Discmans and watched extra contraband TVs while living in the Mennonite community. He's the guy in the car at the airport who comfortably chills out at the "Loading Only" curb until the guard forces him to move along.

I'm a rule follower.

This is probably because most of my stories of breaking rules end up as stories of me getting caught.

So yes...I got kicked out of the Dana Point Turkey Trot.

How did I respond? I moved out of the race area, meandered a ways feeling sorry for myself...and then when the runners doubled back I recklessly jumped in with the pack.

I was quite impressed with myself -- even if I did spend the whole time scanning the crowds for race officials and making sure I was always jogging in the middle of a clump of people and occasionally moving up onto the sidewalk to give an innocuous cheer...

So maybe I USED to be a rule follower...Thanks to my husband I've become a neurotic rule breaker.

In other training news. I have a long run planned for tomorrow on the beach. I'm nervous about it because I'm SUPER sore. Not from my illicit 5K, but from the pre-Thanksgiving-dinner soccer game we played yesterday afternoon.

I'm not a very good soccer player, I wouldn't say I'm a good athlete generally.

No. I'm scrappy and I like to run. That's what I maximize on in organized sports, so yesterday I ran up and down the field after the ball and fell down a lot. Which means that today I can barely walk.

Happy Running, Fams! I'm getting excited! I've also recruited Michael Falconer to run with (but probably out in front) of us!!