Peanuts, Please!

Where in the world was Courtney this time last Saturday?

Why, at the Inaugural Enfield Peanut Gallery 10K Run, of course.

Last week, at approximately 9:31 am, Lojo and I were lined up behind the spray-painted “START” line on a street in downtown Enfield, laughing hysterically as the town mayor shouted “Go!” to begin the first-ever Enfield 10K run.

Rewind to the beginning of August, when I received the weekly blast from the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce, an email with the latest and greatest events happening around Ro Rap. I always at least skim through the bulletin, in hopes that something even semi-interesting might be happening to add a little flavor to our bland lives, but I am almost always disappointed.

Oh, but not this time. There, in that very email, was finally something of interest to the ladies of the Ponderosa: a 10K run in a town that was close to our hearts. We marked our calendars and told our kids that we would be participating in a run through the town, in hopes of earning some street cred and support (“You running 6 miles…in a row?”).

It snuck up on me. One minute we were hanging bulletin boards for back-to-school, and the next it was October 1. Lojo is training for a marathon, and her dedication to her training schedule is admirable if not frightening. I, on the other hand, hadn’t run in over two weeks, what with getting home close to 7 almost every night after volleyball practice. But I figured, hey, if I could run 13 miles 2 months ago, I can certainly handle 6 today. So we set out for the registration destination, but not before we convinced our neighbor to take a “before” picture in our cul-de-sac.


(No, I haven't gotten taller since moving to NC. Lojo just happens to be the one person in the world shorter than me.)

We arrived at Jennie’s Beans & Buns at 8:45 to ensure a spot in the race since we had neglected to pre-register. Jennie’s looks like any other old building in the area—old and uninviting. There were hardly any cars in the parking lot, and I was started to feel anxious. I had no idea what to expect, but I surely wasn’t expecting much.

The second we stepped inside the coffee shop, I was immediately taken aback. It looked so…normal! And cute, even! This was exactly the kind of place we had been looking for since we moved to Roanoke Rapids—a casual local spot to get some work done after school and on the weekends. And all this time it had been sitting in the middle of downtown Enfield, less than 3 miles from my school. This was the first surprise of many to come.

The place was empty except for two or three white ladies and the owner. All of the women were friendly and seemed excited to have us there. They signed us in, gave us our time chip and race numbers, and asked questions about where we lived and worked. As more people started to trickle in, we learned a little more about the event: a whopping 5 people had pre-registered, and they were already up to a total of 10 runners a mere 25 minutes before the race was to begin! I caught Lojo’s eyes and we both stifled laughs as we realized just how small this event was. We decided we were going to win this race, hands down, if there were only 8 other people running! And if nothing else, we’d at least win the ladies’ division. The only other women we saw didn’t look like much competition, anyways.

Our hopes were dashed when an Army recruiter, high school cross-country athlete, and a marathon runner walked in the shop just a few minutes later. We gave up on winning overall, but were still confident about our ability to be the first females to finish.

At 9:25, five minutes before the official start time, the race organizer (whose wife had checked us in) gathered around all 15 (!) runners and read off a list of people he wanted to thank for making this first Enfield Peanut Gallery 10K race possible. The list of people he thanked was definitely longer than the list of runners. He took a few minutes to explain how the course was marked, then walked us over to the start line (the word “Start” written in spray paint on the street) where the town mayor gave us the official “GO!”—and by that, I mean she literally just said the words, “Go!”….and we were off!

We died laughing for the first few minutes. This whole thing was just too much. Fifteen runners? A route marked with spray painted arrows and homemade mile marker signs? Running through Enfield? Oh, and our newest discovery—we were the only females running! The other two women we had seen were there either to cheer on their husbands or participate in the 1K “Fun Run”. So before we even started, we won the race!

It was a beautiful day, and the weather was perfect a run. The course took us through the streets of Enfield, where I saw a few of my students outside their houses, and along the railroad tracks. It even took us straight through a cotton field—as in, we were running on a dirt road with nothing but cotton on both sides of us. There were no other runners in sight—the men had all taken off ahead of us, determined to win. We, on the other hand, could go as fast or as slow as we pleased. After all, we were already the fastest female runners! There were even a few water stations along the way, but I can’t imagine it took more than a few bottles of water to hydrate all the participants.

At the end of the race, we received goodie bags with our very own Enfield 10K Peanut Gallery shirt and some other freebies. They presented a giant bag of peanuts to the male and female winners (Lojo beat me by a second!) and we laughed our way back to the car. With a hot coffee in hand (from our new favorite coffee shop, of course), we strolled the streets of downtown Enfield, where local residents were setting up booths for the annual Peanut Festival. I saw a few more of my kids and finally got to see the town in all its glory. We didn’t last long, though—we were starving and had plans to head to “civilization”, a.k.a. Rocky Mount, for the all-you-can-eat soup, salad, and breadsticks at Olive Garden to refuel (and the obvious stop at Target).

You can only imagine how much fun we had retelling that story to family and friends and basically anyone who would listen ("We got first in the women's division!!!!! Guess how many women we were running against? ZERO!") And it wouldn't be complete without a picture of us in our t-shirts and with the loot:



One of the best Saturdays in a long time.