When my wife texted me about the Gritty 5K, I knew it was something we were going to do. As far as 5Ks go, this one had it all. Decent race route? Check. Ample free parking at the race site? Check. Good t-shirt swag? Check. All that and a free* ticket to a Flyers game? Double check.
* Yes, I realize the tickets were not actually free, and that I paid for them as part of my 5K entry fee. But the cost was about the same as other 5K races, and this swag sure beats a cup of watery, lukewarm apple cider or stone-cold plate of barbecue.
And of course, Gritty was there.
Gritty is an interesting character. If you’re unfamiliar with the mascot, picture an explosion of bright orange fur topped with a too-small hockey helmet, with a hula hoop sewn into his waistline that he deploys in new and vibrantly lascivious displays. Seriously, do other mascots twerk?
I knew of Gritty before moving to Philly, of course. Debuting in 2018, I was fascinated by the monstrosity of his appearance, his wide-eyed yet vacant stare and his flowing and discordantly silken orange beard cascading down upon his chest. His behavior was even more off-putting, at least in the traditional mascot sense. He wasn’t the kind of warm, fuzzy mascot that children loved to hug. No, he was the older kid next door, or maybe your brother’s friend, the guy who was the coolest person you ever met, because he could do, say, or be the things you could only dream of. You don’t hug that guy. You give him a high five, if you’re lucky, if he deigns to allow it. But you certainly don’t hug him.
Obviously I liked Gritty from the get-go. How can you not love something so clearly constructed to discourage you from liking it? Still, it wasn’t until I actually lived in Philadelphia that I really understood him. You see, Gritty is a remarkable encapsulation of this city’s ethos. Philadelphians by and large walk around bearing the weight of massive chips on their shoulders. Gritty embodies what happens whenever anyone points this out. There’s a reason the city’s unofficial motto is “Fuck Around and Find Out.”
The Gritty 5K was the first time I saw the mascot in the, uh, fur, and it was all I wanted. The morning of October 22, my wife and I joined the throng of racers near the starting line, the cool air a blessing to the runners who heeded the race info and donned their orange fur, because of course the people running this race have orange fur in their closets. As we stood waiting for the race to begin, the race MCs forged ahead into their patter, a banal selection of bad jokes and half-hearted stretching.
Then it was Gritty’s turn. He appeared on stage mere feet from where we stood, and as he looked out into the crowd his eyes landed on me. It was just for a moment, and it never felt like he saw me; it was like he saw through me. Those lifeless eyes pierced deeply within me, and filled me with an existential dread that left me shaking, just a little, with the sense that both everything and nothing matters, and that very truth could crumble my ego to dust. And the weird thing is that I liked it. I liked it very much.
Because it was the Gritty 5K, and because the proceedings were…well, let’s just say loosely organized, the race started about ten minutes early, as Gritty’s furry orange thumb plunged the trigger on his airhorn. And with that, we started on one of the weirdest 5Ks I’ve ever experienced. I mean, just look at this map.
The race began in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, home of the Eagles, Phillies, and of course, the Flyers. The first section of the course took us through the parking lots, coursing past stations like painting and disc golf. Let’s just say the course wasn’t laid out for personal records. After flinging a couple cheap frisbees in the direction of the portable disc golf basket, I followed the course out onto Broad Street, turning south towards the Navy Yard.
At the first left turn, we came upon our first water stop—uh, sorry, wooder stop, then on to a…I don’t know what station. There were some inflatable palm trees, I guess, and two or three race volunteers fired bubble guns across the course. But the map symbol was a bathtub, so…
I don’t know.
Next was ribbon dancing. Racers were given long ribbons on a narrow plastic wand and encouraged to express themselves in dance. Me, I twirled a couple circles (and maybe a saucy jeté or two) then tucked the wand into the back of my shorts in what I pictured was a glorious flying tail but was probably more like a sail of yellow toilet paper.
Eventually we made our way back north, passing underneath I-95 in the Grittiest section of the course. It was loud and gross, and there were at least three places where a wrong turn would have sent us into a scrapyard or running on a busy highway. For those who successfully navigated this section, the reward was a return to the parking lot. And a hot dog! Tell me, is there a more fitting end to the Gritty 5K than emerging from a dark, filthy access road followed by shoving a hot dog in your mouth as you sprint towards the finish line?
The whole Gritty 5K experience was a ton of fun, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Even the hockey game we attended was great. I’m sure we’ll be doing it again next year, and for the foreseeable future. But what made the race even better was that we had the chance to run in it at all.
Yeah, we got COVID.
It all started innocently enough. It was Tuesday, Oct. 4th, and I was sitting in our home office, drowsing my way through a departmental meeting. I had a little cough. Then another cough. Before I knew it, I was coughing like an industrial coughing machine. My microphone was muted, so no one heard my lungs try to escape from my body. But in that room, it was very real, and very uncomfortable. Still, after a minute or two, the cough stopped and…well, it felt like that was that. My throat wasn’t pleased at its recent rough treatment, but overall I felt no worse for the wear. I put it out of my mind and started packing.
Oh, that’s right. My wife and I were headed to Rochester for a conference.
We headed north on Wednesday afternoon, and I was feeling mostly fine—if anything, I felt a little tired, maybe sleepy. We enjoyed some leaf peeping along our drive, at least until the sun went down, then arrived in Rochester just after eight. After checking into the hotel, we headed out to a local burger bar for dinner mostly because most other restaurants were already closed. A harsh reminder that it’s the city and not the state of New York that never sleeps.
It wasn’t until we left the restaurant that I realized I was shaking. The weather was a little chilly, but the cold I was feeling went much deeper, and by the time we got back into the room, I couldn’t stop shivering. After taking my temperature (100.4°), I took a very long, very hot shower, then crawled into bed, piling as many sheets and blankets on top of me as I could. This more than anything should have been worrying—I rarely sleep under anything more than a top sheet.
By morning, my fever had broken, but I was not feeling good. I took a COVID test. The directions said it would take at least 15 minutes for the results to show up, but when I snuck a peek after 5 minutes the second, positive line was clear as day. And that, my friends, was that.
By the time my wife and I were able to head home, she was not feeling well either. I felt horrible for bringing this plague into our house. But after all that time traveling in Ohio, it was perhaps only a matter of time. However it happened, we were both under the weather, with a five-plus hour road trip staring us in the face.
I sucked in my gut, popped some Alka-Seltzer, and buckled myself into the driver’s seat, then started the long trip home. The foliage was still there, of course, but it was harder to appreciate it as we struggled to contain our coughs and sneezes. Thanks to the drugs, I felt relatively okay, but I knew that Caitlin was where I was when we’d first arrived in Rochester, and the drive was up to me.
When we finally got home, we lugged our suitcases up to the apartment and dumping them in just inside the door, where they would remain for the next week and beyond. Caitlin headed straight to the bedroom, where she took her own extended hot shower and stack of blankets. I sat on the couch with water, tea, and cold drugs, and watched college football through a haze of exhaustion.
I managed to log into work every day the next week, the unchallenging nature of my job making it possible to rack up a full 40 hours. My wife, who seems to have gotten hit harder by the bug, stayed home until Friday, when she felt compelled to go into work to take care of a few outstanding issues with impending deadlines.
Needless to say, this put a crimp in our physical activities. If you recall, it was only about a month ago I wrote about my newfound running groove, and how I was regularly throwing down six- or eight-mile runs. Heck, half of the clothes I had packed for Rochester were for lifting weights and running along the Genesee River.
Instead, I stopped all running. It felt like all the progress I had been making, all the strength and breath I was building, was falling away, and I had no idea what I would feel like when I got my feet back under me. Would my lungs be damaged from whatever this virus did to people’s bodies? Would my legs seize up with cramps? Would I pull a hamstring with my first or second step?
Which brings us back to the Gritty 5K. In case you couldn’t tell, the race was low stakes. I mean, really low. It would be hard to lower the stakes without making it a non-running race. I mean, there was a hot dog station. On the course. I cannot emphasize enough how low these stakes were.
But it had stakes for me. I wasn’t focusing on speed or personal records. I was interested in running the whole thing, whatever my finishing time. To me, being able to run the entire course would be a sign that maybe my training wasn’t all for naught, that maybe my three-week break wouldn’t have set me back all that far after all. If I could finish this race, the whole thing, without taking a break to walk, then I could feel a whole lot better about my physical state.
And wouldn’t you know it?
As far as COVID goes, I know we both got pretty lucky. Yes, the variants don’t seem to be as devastating as the earlier forms of the disease. But thanks to vaccines and taking the time (the luxury, really) to rest when we got sick, we managed to avoid the brunt. I don’t think that either my wife or I are at 100%. There’s a minor lingering cough and some residual sinus stuff. But some of that could also be allergies. And even if it’s not, those kinds of symptoms are not ones we’re concerned about over the long term.
This past weekend we went running both days, first at Woodland Cemetery and then in Wissahickon State Park. Both runs felt even better than the 5K, and it’s encouraging that I felt just as strong as I did before I got sick. Could I run eight miles right now? Probably not. But there’s another two weeks before the Bay Bridge Run, a 10K jaunt over the Chesapeake Bay, and by that point we should be ready to go.
I’ll let you know if Gritty shows up there, too.
MetaFrizzics 