Corporately Challenged

So the big day finally came-no, not the wedding day, but rather, corporate
challenge day. After months of strenuous workouts, tireless dieting and
loops of the Rocky theme song I was ready. OK, so if you know me, that's a
bunch of crap. I thought I could easily pull a 5k walk/run with my
co-workers out of my ass if I needed to, so I kept eating pizza and
occasionally have a beer.

So the big day came, we line up in our matching t-shirts and prepare to
walk (I don't run unless its from someone or for a shoe sale) the 3.5 mile
in beautiful central park, NYC with 15,000 other NYC corporate employees.
Here's the thing: Organising a group of 5 people is hard. Organizing a
group of 15,000 people is impossible. The runners line up according to
pace: 6, 7, 8, etc up to the non competitive people (people compete in
these things?!) And we all wait for the starting whistle. So I'm there
with 2 of my co workers and 3 others I've just been introduced to and get
ready to start. And then it starts to rain. No, I'm being too kind. Its
pouring. But were dedicated to the cause, right? Wait-whats the cause
again?

The whistle blows and were off! Only we don't get to move at all because
were waiting for the 123486 people in front of us to begin their
competitive trot around scenic, rainy, central park. After 10 minutes, the
ground clears enough for us to shuffle our feet, but the little old men in
the park are passing us and they're using walkers!

We keep pushing ourselves and eventually reach a slow jog thanks to the
coaching of my co worker, who encourages me to set small milestones and jog
at least half. When we came up on the last half mile of the race, he
pushed me to finish while shouting, can't you hear the music at the end?
And while I wanted to punch his lights out because my legs were jello and
my knees and Achilles tendons are burning, I rounded the bend and finished
under 45 minutes. Not too bad for a corporately challenged beginner! And
while I write this after having had two celebratory beers following the big
win, I can't help but wonder, will I be able to feel my legs tomorrow?