My Pizza Race Experience

On Wednesday night, the scene on Broad Avenue was surreal. The constant motorcade of sports cars, SUVs and minivans that flows through Central and Broad was cut off by the police and their yellow-planked barricades. The downtown blocks of Westfield, so often frequented by the prim, proper, and polite, now gave way to a group of runners, over two thousand strong. The day -to-day social mores were tossed aside with the emptied water bottles. They sweated and spat, used storefronts as stretching posts, and cursed under their breaths as race time was postponed. 

I myself stood among the herd, awaiting the start of my second summer race. After a strange false-start due to the officials marking the starting line, I was off. The start of a race is not unlike being at a rock concert, a tightly pack crowd jostling for position, each individual attempting to find a clean view.

Just a quarter mile into the race, I realize that this is not just another 5K. I had left behind the flat terrain of Broad Avenue for the hilly north side, whose streets seem to wind skyward. I, a Cranford native, am not used to inclines. Our hills are relegated to our parks, thankfully hidden away from runners and stick-shifts.  

At mile two, I want to admire the crisp Americana, the hodgepodge of families standing at curbside, the gentle arch of the sprinklers' spray, the exclamations of children as they point at the passing crowd, but instead I discover a stitch on my right side. It starts as a small sparkle of pain but quickly blossoms into a vivisection. I begin making noises associated with women in labor or salt-mine workers, attracting strange looks as I lurch through my fellow runners.

By the third mile, I've pushed through the remainder of pain and begin to trouble-shoot. How can someone, who logs 15 miles a week in distance-running, be reduced to a gut-grabbing, sweat lathered, shame of a being? I realize, its most likely my nutrition. My high-school track coach had always recommended that his runners eat a small bit of junk food so they had calories to burn throughout a race. In hindsight, he would have most likely frowned on a lunch of pizza bagels, and a beer the night before. 

I cross the finish line at a pedestrian 29:05. I make my way to free water and am amazed to discover I still have a sense of hearing as I turn off my music. Finally, with a half-hour of fitness logged in the books, what better way to finish off the strange night than with a delicious piece of free pizza.

Editor's Note: Gerald Tobin is a contributor to Westfield Patch.