The Run Bet

I’ve got a new group of running BFFs. They are amazing and strong and beautiful and smart and I love them. And they run with me! And there’s like, a lot of them so when one is busy there’s still so many to run with me!

We’re that group of obnoxiously fit women running down the street in a pack. You know the one that I mean.

Let me introduce you:

First, there’s Bethany. We know Bethany. She’s the one who limped me from 1 minute running/5 minutes walking to my first 10k after my back injuries. She is the one who has listened to me bitch and moan, and whine, and somehow has an uncanny knack for knowing when I’m actually hurting and when I’m just whining.

I met Bethany at Verizon.

She likes margaritas and line dancing.

She laughs at my jokes, has as many “duh” moments as I do, and her husband has mentioned giving me “custody rights” as she spends almost as much time at my house as she does at her own.

Next, there’s Jamie. Jamie is a champ. I also met Jamie at Verizon. After the first back injury when I was trying to start running again and Bethany and I hadn’t really started hanging out, I bribed Jamie to run with me. She had never been a runner, so I figured it would be perfect because we would be starting on equal ground. I think it was November or so when I bribed her, and we planned on running the Pacific Crest the following June (2013).

Then I decided slipping and falling and reinjuring myself would be more fun.

I totally expected her to bail on our bet, but apparently, damnit, she made a deal and would stick to it!

That led to a long summer of her cussing at me almost on a daily basis while I cheered her on, limping myself back into running with Bethany. “I will never do one of these again! This is stupid!” she kept saying.

At the beginning of June, she started having foot problems that caused her a lot of pain. I told her to back off running, and she did, but she still ran the race. Because of her foot, she had to walk quite a bit of it.

Because of her foot, she’s running another “damn run.”

…Apparently she wants to prove something. I told her that she’s now officially a runner and it doesn’t get any better.

She might still cuss at me.

Last but not least, there’s Amy. She’s really fast. We’re really slow compared to her, but she likes the buddy system and doesn’t mind toning it down for us so long as we punch it up for her. Amy is friends with our neighbor from our old house, which is how we know her. She has the cutest ever daughter, who is two and a half and our adopted niece.

Her daughter has the biggest crush on my husband. It is totally adorable.

And I’m the cupcake lady, which makes me awesome.

Anyways. She’s fast.

So these three girls get my butt moving on a regular basis.

We are all signed up for the Pacific Crest this year, and my old boss overheard us talking about it. Now, a couple things you should know about Brian (my old boss): he is ridiculous, talks a lot of smack, and is one of the nicest guys you’ll meet.

And he likes to pretend he’s a runner.

Okay, so he’s run races which I guess qualifies him as a runner, but he likes to pretend like he doesn’t actually train for them. He goaded me into running the Dirty Half against him in 2012 and I beat him by 15 minutes. And it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to run that race.

However, he ran the 10k with Bethany and I last summer and beat us by a minute.

We think that had we had six more miles, we would have kicked his butt.

So anyways, he overheard us chatting (well, Jamie, Bethany and I anyways, as it was before I left Verizon) and had to butt in. He started saying that he was going to run this race and beat all of us. Bethany, being one of the most competitive people I know, immediately latched on to that and started yelling back at him that he was ridiculous.

This quickly devolved into name calling and good-humored trash talk.

Then I proposed the bet: whoever lost had to buy everyone else a pitcher of margaritas.  Bethany and Brian thought that was a pretty awesome idea. And then Brian made the mistake of turning to Jamie – who having been a “runner” for all of a year isn’t quite as fast as the rest of us yet – and said, “Oh don’t worry, Jamie, we won’t make you participate.”

Jamie is normally very quiet and reserved, but apparently, that was a button that when pushed caused an unexpected reaction.

“OH. MY. GOSH! Are you calling me SLOW?” She blurted.

He made a terrible attempt to deny this and she started hollering at him about how she most definitely was NOT slow and that she would totally kick his butt.

I’ve never seen her quite so riled up.

She was so riled that after giving Brian what-for, she marched off to lunch and forgot her purse and her jacket and had to come back in and get them. She’s normally much more together. It was hilarious.

So we have this bet.

Since then, it has morphed into including Amy and changed a little bit. If Brian loses to any one of us four, he will buy two pitchers of margaritas. But whoever he beats also has to buy one pitcher of margaritas. This means that if he’s faster than we think he is, we will be very blitzed by the end of the day.

However, we have our secret weapon, Amy, who we know will beat him. And we’re pretty much banking on that extra seven miles (a 10k is 6.1 and a half is 13.1 for those of you who can’t do the math) to do him in.

Though Bethany pointed out to me that our own math might be off: if we let Amy beat him and then the other three of us lose to him, then that’s five pitchers of margaritas that will be bought. That’s a lot of margaritas. Luckily, some of us are way to competitive to think that way, and even with the lure of margaritas, Bethany can’t stand to let Brian beat us again!

Ciao,

kc