Colour me green

The Bloomsday 12K race organisers tell me (via email this morning) that I’m go for green for this weekend’s race. This makes me so happy because I feared my two-year hiatus from the event would relegate me to lilac once again.

I should note here that there are more than 50,000 race participants and they colour-code groups by estimated finish times, with the fastest people in the front. The first time Paul and I ran the race, we were lilac – way in the back where all the walkers are. But the next year saw Paul upgraded to yellow (the best non-elite group) and me to orange (the third non-elite group). Paul’s funeral was the day before the 2009 race, so there was no way I was going to participate, but I think he’d have been pleased to know that I was upgraded to green that year – the second non-elite group. (Paul was slated for the yellow group again.) But I digress…

Despite not participating for two years, the race organisers still felt I was worthy of being GREEN!

And, because he was listed as a runner instead of a walker, my soon-to-be-12-year-old nephew and running partner, Haden, has been seeded in the blue group. Which is the fifth back from the elite, but is still in front of the walkers.

Now, because you can start with a colour group behind yours but not in front of yours, I will be starting in the blue group. But I will be wearing my lovely green race bib. Yay! Haden and I are super-duper excited about the race and aim to run the whole thing. Yes, even Doomsday Hill!!

Oh, and it seems green is my theme this week. I’m working on an updated look for Just Frances and sent a test link to a couple of friends. And one wrote back saying all sorts of mean things that made me cry about how horrible he thinks my choice of greens is. So I sent him a set of four other greens and he replied with more harsh, cruel words, sending me into a spiral of despair and sorrow.

OK, I may be exaggerating a bit there. I think it would be fairer to say he questioned very nicely if the first shade was too dark (I agreed) then made a suggestion on a possible direction based on the next set of four. I hate to admit it, but his comments have actually given me a great idea for my green solution.

And one more thing on the topic of green: The thought of “green” and “solution” in a sentence made me think of the movie Soylent Green. It’s a great movie and if you’ve not yet seen it, you should!