Another victim falls to the dark side...

With me running the marathon, I was not able to gain a ton of awareness for Get On The Bus, but many of my readers, maybe some of you included, became inspired to run as well.  If you read my very first entry ever, you will understand that running enthusiasts are a lot like crack dealers and we feed off getting more and more people addicted to the sport of running.  In a way, it is our street cred.

For some of you, I wasn't that surprised when you decided to cross over to the dark side.  Actually for most of you, I knew you had it deep down in you, you just needed me to bring it out.  However, there was one person that still continues to shock me.  (Mainly because this person HATES to work out with a passion.)  He also doesn't understand the concept of running without being chased.  So when Joe approached me last week and said, "Hey Maria, I was thinking of running this 5K, are you interested?"  I just about fell out of my chair.

I knew there had to be more to this story because the likelihood of Joe freely electing to run without any danger is very low.  However, when he told me the race was called the "Down and Dirty Mud Run", I started to understand a bit more.  For those of you who aren't married, men never grow out of thinking like boys.  They constantly are attracted to things that they played with when they were younger: cars, trucks, and mud.  Although you probably couldn't pay Joe to run a 5K, if you slap some mud into the deal, he is easily on board.

Once the excitement of running through puddles of mud and military style obstacles wore off, Joe realized that he may need to train for this.  At this point, his excitement level dropped a bit and he did what he hates to do most, he asked for my help.  I was on cloud nine and I of course agreed to run with him.

Our first run was on Thursday morning.  Our goal was to concur a mile. At 7 am, Joe, Maya and I left our house for our first training run.   Now, after doing 26.2 of these suckers, I thought doing a mile would be cake walk.  Well, that is until we started.  As soon as I said go, Joe and Maya took off sprinting.  I learned then that running with a guy is very different than running with a girl.  Leanne and I converse and run at the same time.  We pace ourselves and we just go out and have fun.  Running with Joe and Maya, it was all competition.  No one was talking because it was impossible to catch that much breath.

As we got to the halfway point, I looked down at my watch and we had only been running for just under 4 minutes.  Holy crap!  I felt like one of the elite runners running the marathon.  We were flying.  Just then, Maya had to stop to do some business for about 30 seconds.  I was very appreciative because I really needed the break.  As soon as she was done, we took off again.

As we crossed our finish line, I looked down and we had run this thing in 8 minutes and 10 seconds.  I was flabbergasted.  I was used to running at around at 10 minute mile pace and I busted out one of my fastest times ever running with the closeted speed demon who had never trained for anything in his life.  How could this be?

I want to send a special note of thanks to Pasquale Vericella and the Beverly Hills Rotary Club for your kind donations.  Pasquale, a native Pittsburgher,  is also the owner of Il Cielo Restaurant in Beverly Hills.  http://www.ilcielo.com/  He will be holding a special fundraiser for Get On The Bus on Monday, April 26, 2010.  During this evening, 25% of all profits will be donated to Get On The Bus.  If you are in the LA area, please come out and support this.  The restaurant is fantastic and it was voted one of the most romantic restaurants in LA.