I Accidentally Crashed an AIDS Race

I went for a run on Saturday morning. I wasn't too enthused about it, because the winter temps were in the low 60s, and now that I'm a namby pamby, this is stocking cap weather for me. I delayed as long as I could, but winter is here, and finally, around 9:00 AM, I made my way down to St. Petersburg to go run down there.

I found a nice little 2-hour parking spot and started off on my run. As I turned towards the water, I saw a police officer and a whole lot of runners up ahead. I decided to go in the opposite direction of the runners, and that way I would cross paths with them for a short while, but then I would clear them and be on my way.

After a few blocks, I saw that everyone was coming from my left, so I just headed straight and found a quieter stretch. Then, after a few more blocks, as I kept chugging forward, the course had apparently turned back as I was right in the middle of the damn run. There were no side streets to turn down, and I was basically just stuck.

I'll be honest. I kind of liked it. I was passing fools left and right and leaving them in my dust. There were people along the path cheering people on. Then, I ran into a conundrum. Up ahead, there were people on both sides of the road looking for high-fives. Clearly, they wanted to high-five the people that were supporting the AIDS run, not some random dumbass. But, it would be rude to deny somebody a high-five. I was cruising, so they may not even notice that I wasn't in the race, so I did the polite thing and high-fived the shit out of them. It was exhilarating.

I was at full swagger at this point as I was running real fast and taking advantage of every high-five imaginable. I decided to take it to the next level, and instead of giving somebody a high-five, I paid tribute to the nWo and The Elite and gave a woman the too-sweet sign right to the palm of her hand. That old lady was probably super confused, but I had a HUGE smile on my face.

Then the race turned down another street and I saw the finish line up ahead. It was at this time that I knew my time was done. I would likely be found out, and I also wasn't ready to end my run in less than two miles. I cut through the cone barrier and headed up another street towards my own finish line.

But the accidental AIDS run did have a positive impact on me. I would like to not only declare myself, but this entire blog, anti-AIDS...but very pro AIDS runs.