Team Awesome does San Diego

So I ran this marathon on Sunday. But before I really get into it, here's a little back story on how this came to pass:

My friend Becky and I decided back in February that we would raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and train for this marathon with their program, Team in Training. At the time it seemed like a brilliant plan: raise money for a good cause and have a structured group setting to make sure you're doing all the training to get you ready to run 26.2 miles. There was, however, one thing that we could not have expected about Team in Training that made it kind of scary (and in my book akin to Chinese Water Torture):

The pep factor.

I've never met so many happy, peppy people in my life. Like abnormally happy and peppy. "Should-have-been-hired-to-work-at-Disneyland" kind of happy. "Got-kicked-off-the-cheerleading-squad-for-being-over-the-top" kind of peppy.

And let me just be clear. I do not do peppy. I was a cheerleader in high school, and I am very sure I used up an entire lifetime's worth of peppy cheer in those three and a half years. There is literally none left. I CANNOT handle peppy. Or cheesy. Or any type of "too sincere for its own good" sacharine sweetness. This is why I hate musicals, and a cappela groups and movement songs. And it is also why I HATE Team In Training.

So we show up for Team in Training and it's all chanting and cheering and clapping and "GOOOOOO TEAM!" all over the place. This is bad enough for me. But then they tell us that we're going to have to come up with a team name. I can feel myself starting to cringe as I look desperately for an exit from this cornball filled hell. After a brief flirtation with the name Team Outstanding (and I hope you don't think I'm kidding) we finally settle on Team Balance. I quietly retch in the corner. Privately, to Becky and to my other friends, I decide to refer to the crazies as Team Awesome. (This is, of course, ironic.)

Becky and I start going to the team workouts. I don't last long with this. Every time I go, I can feel the "Go Team" and "East Bay ROCKS" chanting, the Team Balance name, the super-excited, happy and energized people who just can't wait to bust out some jazz hands eating away at the core of my very cynical soul. This is not acceptable. I decide to train on my own. Because really, when given a choice between revolting peppiness and running 20 miles by myself--hell, given the choice between peppy and just about anything else--peppy is going to lose.

I stayed aloof and removed up to the day that we all flew down to San Diego. And then something terrible happened. I got trapped on a plane with Team Awesome. And they were in prime form. Most of them were wearing their Team gear, and as soon as the flight attendant had finished the flight safety speech, the chanting began. And then singing: "We are the Champions." "We Will Rock You." God knows what else because by then I was curled in the fetal position in my seat, rocking and covering my ears while screaming "I can't hear you, I can't hear you."

Ok that's a lie.

But the chanting and the singing is not.