This weekend I participated in one of the craziest race events I’d ever heard of: WazUPwidis, an urban race/stair challenge in downtown Roanoke. It combined a 2.5-ish mile run with jaunts up and down the steps and ramps in parking garages, traversing over railroad tracks at the Transportation Museum, and a grueling slog up, up, up twenty stories to the top of the Wells Fargo tower.
The best part of the race? Definitely the twists and turns at the Transportation Museum, curving around trains and tractors and old cars and dashing by museum workers dressed in conductor garb.
The worst part? Do you even have to ask? The tower. The TOWER. The tallest building in Roanoke’s skyline. The seemingly endless flights of stairs, up up up and up. And then… right back down when you’re still delirious from the climb up.
Other highlights included a speedy hug fro my awesome friend Liz, who was a volunteer course marshal at the MLK bridge; unexpected direction from my hubby, who had come to cheer me on and ended up as an impromptu volunteer course marshal near the end of the race; and the great realization, which a fellow runner graciously pointed out, that the time of 41 minutes showing when I crossed the finish line wasn’t my actual time since I had started in the third wave, meaning I could chop 4 minutes off that time.
So, the results. I was #200 out of 246 runners and #10 out of 17 in my age group (gals 30-34). My performance wasn’t stellar in terms of the competition, I admit. But I also know that there were a lot of people who didn’t consider themselves fit enough to compete, and people who wouldn’t even think to even begin to try to participate in such an event. So even though I was in the bottom of the pile of participants, in the grand scheme of things, I still feel on top.
Because, you know, just for a second, I was.
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