This quote is so true, yet so annoying at the same time. Who wants to wait? In my “real” life, I can tolerate waiting in traffic, waiting in line for my morning coffee, waiting on hold to speak to a real person … these are all things I have done so many times that I am immune to being aggravated. Recently my husband had surgery, and we waited for three hours before he was taken to surgery; I waited for three hours before I heard how the surgery went; we waited, and waited, and waited, when we called the nurse’s desk and asked for assistance. This kind of waiting really tests my patience, probably due to stress and fatigue and worry.
In my “running” life, I just can’t get used to the wait in corrals for the race to start. I have learned that pre-gun, I am supposed to do “dynamic”, not “static” stretches. Usually in the corral I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with the next person, so there is no room to be jumping around “dynamically”. If I warm up before being herded into the corral, by the time the race starts I’m ice cold.
A perfect example (but not the only example) of this is runDisney (insert any runDisney race name here). Don’t get me wrong, I love Disney, have run two events, and hope to do many more. It’s not Disney’s fault that a gazillion people sign up for their races.
Let me put it this way – I basically couldn’t see the start line from my WDW Marathon corral. And there were plenty of people behind me too. We were up at 3 a.m. to catch the shuttle to the race start, where we sat around, shivered, and waited to line up in the corrals, where we waited for a half gazillion people to start before us. For the Wine and Dine, a night race, I sat on the ground for hours before moving to the corrals (when it started pouring rain), where I waited again for the speedier Mouseketeers to start before me. Disney staggers the corral start times to avoid congestion, but that just means more waiting! And don’t even ask me about the lines of people waiting to take pictures with the characters during the races 🙂 !
Honestly, I know this is a good system and it’s what I signed up (and paid mightily) for. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it! I also know that to avoid this, I should run in smaller races, and I do try to look for smaller races. But let’s face it, the fanfare and bling can really sway a girl!
Moral of the story – Get over it, be patient, enjoy the journey because you never know if you will be lucky enough to experience it again.
SeeLindaRun 