I kept my promise

Next week is the almighty Boston Marathon, but this weekend, I decided to have a little bit of fun -- “the calm before the storm” -- and run in two 5Ks, the RIDA Nutrition Fuels Fitness race at Goddard Park in Warwick and the Officer Thomas Giunta 5K in Fall River.

I wasn’t shooting for any big times or fantastic finishes in either race -- just a good run in one of my favorite parks for a 5K and then my old hometown. I did land a much better time at Saturday’s RIDA event (22:36) than I did at Sunday’s Giunta 5K (23:32), but I think I had a good enough excuse for that time.

I wore a running skirt.

Yes, like I promised at the end of January, if I raised $700 for the American Cancer Society, I would run in one of southeastern Massachusetts’s biggest races of the spring in a skirt. So I raised $701and I kept my promise. And it really felt weird, not because it’s every day that you would see a guy running in a skirt, but it was tough to adjust to one.

I wore the leopard-print one that I put in my final January post and matched it with an old Poison concert t-shirt (a member of my running club who will remain nameless offered to double his donation had I wore it). I got a lot of strange looks from some folks and a lot of laughs from others, but I pinned on the back of my t-shirt a sign that reported I was doing it for the American Cancer Society and some people praised me for what I was doing.

As far as the race, right from the start, when the race took runners up a hill for the first three-fourths of a mile, I felt the skirt being really loose around my hips. Was it going to fall? That’s what I asked myself, so I tried to get a bit comfortable by starting to run with a little bend in my hips and I kept my strides a little shorter.

Then halfway through the race, I felt some “freedom” in my skirt and “stuff” starting to “fly” about. But I managed to keep things under control, especially with a lot of fans on each side of the course, and continued to run at a 7½-mile pace.

Meanwhile, the reactions to my skirt continued. I got some long stares from some folks who seemed to try to figure out what was wrong with the picture of me. I freaked out one little boy, who yelled, “Hey mom, that bald man is running with a skirt!” Some old guy on Bedford Street absolutely lost it and started gurgling something in Portuguese.

As for the rest of the afternoon, I put away some chourico and peppers and Fall River chow mein at the post-race buffet and went to the Elks Club on North Main Street for the second post-race party, which included six kegs of beer, some more food (hot dogs and Portuguese soup), a live band, a raffle, and some very, very good company.

And there was some good news that came out of this race. In addition to the record number of runners (somewhere around 1,350) that registered for the race, it was announced that this was NOT going to be the final race, which was advertised as the 16th and final race on the web site and quickly picked up steam around the local running community. It seems like a local police officer is going to carry the torch and take over as race director, so that was very good news to hear! I will be back, but as for the skirt ...