I fainted on MARTA

For those of you who don't live in the South, you may not know that Atlanta hosts the nation's largest 10K, the Peachtree Road Race, each year on July 4th. My grandfather ran this race for the first time 30 years ago, and ran it every year after that until his knees started to get bad about 10 years ago. Since then, my sister and aunt have kept up the tradition every year, and I've run it 4 times myself.

This year, since my sister is pregnant, we decided to walk it together. I made the mistake of not training very much since I figured it would be easy just to walk it. Wrong! If you don't know, a 10K race is 6.2 miles. That's pretty hard. I can pretty easily get to Mile 4, then the last 2.2 miles are a pretty good struggle.

However, the absolute hardest part of the race is actually not the race at all. The hardest part of doing the Peachtree is the walk back to MARTA. I had my Garmin on, and apparently the walk from the end of the race to MARTA, and from MARTA to the hotel came out to be 2 miles. That means I walked 8.2 miles yesterday in the Georgia heat, after barely training at all.

So it probably doesn't come as a huge surprise that, after walking 8+ miles to get on a bus where I had to stand up and hold on for dear life (oh, and I had also only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before-- but let's not go there!), I fainted. I've decided that every fainting experience is strange, and this one did not disappoint.

Like I said, I was standing up on a MARTA bus, holding onto a pole and trying not to hit the lady beside me with the bag I was carrying, when all of a sudden I got this huge urge to cry because I was just so exhausted. This was followed by that feeling that you get when you're about to faint. I felt light-headed, and dizzy. My dad and sister we both in front of me, but facing away, so I quickly tapped my dad on the shoulder and said "dad, I feel dizzy." He looked at me, probably not even hearing what I'd said, then the last thing I remember is trying not to lock my knees (if there's one thing you learn from being in marching band, it's that locking your knees makes you pass out) and trying to rest my head on the pole I was holding onto.

Then I fainted.

Honestly, the fainting part felt amazing. I realize how strange that must sound. It was as if I was having the most wonderful dream ever. I was floating in this blue-ish/purple-ish sea with mermaids or angels or something coming to see me. I know I sound crazy, but that's what it was like. I felt so rested and peaceful.

Then I woke up.

I didn't want to wake up. I went from the best, most peaceful dream imaginable to a dream-gone-bad. My dad was sitting in front of my fanning me, I was lying flat on my back on the floor of MARTA with some man holding my head in one hand and my hand in the other. I tried to get up, but the man told me to take it easy. I was mortified. MORTIFIED. Someone shoved a banana in my face and then a water bottle. MORTIFIED. I looked around the bus. Had they stopped it just for me? No, we were at the MARTA station, and everyone had gotten off. I heard my sister talking to my mom on the phone, telling her there was a doctor on the bus, and realized that was the nice man holding my head off the floor. I saw the driver come down the aisle, asking if we still needed the ambulance. That's when I finally spoke up and said NO! I didn't want anymore of a fuss. Have I mentioned I was MORTIFIED?!

The nice doctor man with curly hair and peach-colored shorts walked me off the bus, and told me to just sit down for a while. I'm lucky he was so nice. I know I'm lucky I was okay.

I keep replaying this over in my head. It really was traumatic. It seems that I may have been passed out for a while, seeing as we made it to the MARTA station and everyone was off the bus, and my mom and an ambulance had already been called. I've really been too embarrassed and upset about it to ask my dad details, but I want to know.

This year's Fourth of July may have been a disaster, but next year's will be a blast!