Day 25: Marathon Not

A dream ago, i'd planned to run 3 marathons this year. i registered for this last one but ended up doing zero preparation for it. i figured, ok, i can still do a 1/2, even though my fever 2 days ago had me struggling to stay on my feet after an hour.

But the final blow came this morning when the BJ Air Quality Index came in reading 340: Hazardous.

My limit for exercising outside is 250 (over 200 is already "Very Unhealthy". A  couple weeks ago, the AQI was 240, and i really wanted to do the one hr bike ride to work, so i figured i risk it. Plus i have a mask. But 40 min in, i realized i need to recalibrate my limit. My lungs were feeling tight, my breath was raspy and my throat felt like i'd been drinking something too acidic. i slowed down. i felt like my effort to be healthy was in fact poisoning me.

Today, the five people in my running group who were registered to run all decided to forgo the event.

But i had already eaten a carb-heavy breakfast, and Yoyo and i had downed our coffees. So we went down anyways just to have a peek. Also i had some coworkers who were there.

We got there 5 min before staring time. At my insistence, my coworker had left my race package outside subway exit B for me, but it had shockingly disappeared by the time i got there.

Then me and Yoyo went to see the race, and we ended up joining the whole 4km event, along w/ a thousand or so peeps, many in funny costumes. Somebody from Greenpeace saw our masks and interviewed us about air quality. Anyhow, being super disorganized worked out amazingly well, as it allowed me and Yoyo to stick together. Lucky, 'cause if we just wasted time looking for my race package and missing the race, it woulda been a bummer.

Yoyo tries on a shoe.