As we mentioned before, this weekend was our 3rd half marathon, and some foot problems were threatening to keep us from completing it. As it turned out, however, foot problems were pretty insignificant compared to the thing that actually nearly prevented us from completing it.

This is our race report!

We did everything right. The race was scheduled for 8:30. We got up early. I fed the cats at 5:30, had some breakfast with a pretty good mixture of protein and carbohydrates, packed a Clif bar for the ride to the race and a protein bar for afterwards. The paperwork from the race said that we should arrive at 7:30 (which I thought was probably overkill, but OK). It was about a 35 minute drive away. We figured if we left a little after 7:00 it should be OK.

I made banana smoothies. I asked Eyegirl what I should wear. The temperature was about 48 and supposed to reach almost 60 with wind by the time we would finish the race. She has just bought me a new Under Armour base layer turtleneck for my birthday, so I thought it would be perfect. I tried a few T-shirts to go over it, but eventually asked her, “Would it be weird to wear a cycling jersey? It would be nice to have the back pockets for your asthma inhaler and to put our gloves and sunglasses in.”

“Go for it,” she said. I thought the zipper might also be good to help cool off. We got our sunglasses and cold-weather gloves. Eyegirl packed her asthma inhaler and handed me some energy chews to carry during the run (in my handy back pockets!).

We got into the car at about 7:15. I started the engine and looked in the rear view mirror.

That’s weird, I thought, I forgot to open the garage door. I usually open it before I get in the car. I pressed the button on the remote control. It went up a few inches and came back down. Hmm I’d better turn off the engine, we’re sitting in a running car with the garage door closed!

I got out and pressed the switch on the wall. Again it went up a few inches, and now I realized: The piece of wood that anchors the opener to the front wall had spontaneously ripped itself out of the wall and was hanging down in the path of the garage door with all of the nails sticking out. We disengaged the automatic opener, but because the wood was blocking the path of the door, it couldn’t be opened more than a foot, even manually.

Trying to remain calm, we got the power drill and some deck screws. “I’m going to try to lift it back into position and screw it in,” I told Eyegirl. I tugged at the wood, but couldn’t budge it enough and operate the drill at the same time. She got a kitchen chair and climbed up to help me, but even together we couldn’t combine the strength to lift it up with the dexterity of operating the drill at the same time. I let out a sort of Tarzan-like yell trying to put all of my strength into it.

We regrouped. It was 7:45, getting late. Could we disassemble it? Take out all of the bolts so that the wood wouldn’t be bearing the weight of the whole assembly? Not knowing much about garage doors, we couldn’t imagine a scenario that might not result in some high-tension spring popping into our eyes.

I was unbelievably angry. We were more prepared than ever and a stupid little piece of wood was preventing us from being able to get out of our house. If Eyegirl had said she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to do it, I would have been bummed but understood. But here we were, standing in our full race gear, already attached our shoe timing tags and pinned on our bib numbers (even relatively straight!). We had applied anti-chafing products for crying out loud! We both wanted to go, but we couldn’t get our car out of the garage!

If only we had parked in the driveway instead! Could we call one of our friends and ask to borrow their car? It was 7:55. We started to resign that we would miss the race. Even if we left right now, there might not be enough time to find a parking space and get to the starting line, especially since they warned us to be there at 7:30.

Eyegirl called a cab service. It might be a 20 minute wait to pick us up. “Forget it,” I said.

I went back to take one more look at it. There has to be a way to move this thing! I climbed up again to give it another tug (and another Tarzan-yell). It budged, it was pretty close! Eyegirl climbed up again and helped. Together, we mustered the strength to lift it back into position. It seemed that its own weight would hold it roughly in place, but as if enough hadn’t gone wrong. . .

The motor started running again! Maybe because it was now back in appropriate position, or maybe just to mess with us, the chain started moving. Eyegirl let out a yelp – her hand had been pinched somewhere in the process! Imagining the worst, I ran to cut the power to the device, something I should have thought of as step 1. Luckily it just a minor pinch, but we are dummies and should not be operating machinery before 8:00 AM.

I got the deck screws again and drilled in a few. They just barely went through the first piece of wood, Eyegirl told me, but hopefully it would hold enough to get the car out.

I lifted the door up and she pulled the car out. I grabbed a few things, closed the door, and hopped in. It was 8:05. We started driving and took stock of what we had. The most important stuff was there: Asthma inhaler – yep, bibs, timing tags – good. Almost everything else was forgotten in the hustle. Wallet – nope, gloves – took them off to work on the door, sunglasses – put them down when we thought we weren’t going to make it, ear muffs – ditto, energy chews – forgotten.

The GPS said that we would be there a few minutes before 8:30. We weren’t sure whether to believe it, but we crossed our fingers. “Hopefully we’ll at least be able to run to the start line in time to be counted!” I said.

We must have had all the luck with traffic, because we made it to the parking lot, jogged a little to the starting line, and were standing in our corral before the national anthem.

“I can’t believe we made it,” We said, both laughing at each other. My new base layer turtle neck had black spring marks on the sleeves and our hands were covered in grease.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2 – the actual race!

(In the scramble, I didn’t take a “before” picture, but here is the piece of wood propped back close to its original place. If you can imagine when it had fallen down, the bottom of it was overlapping the top edge of the door so that it couldn’t be opened.)