Nemesis follow-up!!!
The identity of my nemesis has been revealed! On Wednesday we were all cold and shivering before Street-O (you have to start out freezing or else you overheat as you run) but we gathered for a group photo. Then they called us down by name to receive our awards for attending every season event. The moment they called my nemesis’ name and I saw who she was I felt like my heart grew about three sizes from excitement but also from admiration! She is a bit older than me (I hear from a source that she has a few teenaged kids) and she is out there every week, sometimes beating me!
Plus, she has a husband who, it turns out, has been Jeremy’s maybe-nemesis all season, too! Jeremy beat him in the overall points but most weeks they were scoring pretty close to each other. This couple is our #goals.
I was so pleased to see who my nemesis was, and that she was such a worthy opponent, that I didn’t even mind when we tied on Wednesday, meaning she beat me in the overall points by those measly 17 points. I ran my heart out on that last course and scored 20 points more than her but one of the answers (a 20-pointer, ha) was wrong so it didn’t count. So dramatic!!!
And now Street-O is over and I am bereft. It really gets me through the long, dark winter: “if I can just survive until next Wednesday!” Etc. I am so glad that my leg held up all season and that I improved so much compared to last season.
To wrap up Street-O content: there is this weird phenomenon that in my mind I call Street-O déjà vu. It’s that thing where you’re somewhere in town, maybe in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and you turn a corner or see a particular buliding and realize: hey! I’ve been here before! It was pitch black and freezing cold and I was counting the number of mailboxes/checking the business name/identifying what kind of tree/etc. It is a very strange thing to experience and every time it happens I just have to laugh. Jeremy and I also laugh about the strange vivid memories we have formed running around in the dark in various industrial alleys or random patches of forest around town. If someone asked me to go running at 7pm behind a factory on the other side of town I would not do it. And yet slap it on a Street-O map and I’m there! Counting loading docks, even!!
