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Heavy rain predicted for the Wyoming Valley into the weekend

Final debate brings little clarity to undecided voters

<p>Before any big event, my friend Anne&#8217;s advice is always the same: DPYP.</p><p>Don&#8217;t poop your pants.</p><p>Well. I didn&#8217;t poop my pants.</p><p>And if that&#8217;s the barometer by which I measure a successful 5K run, then consider it a raging victory.</p><p>I think we&#8217;ve all ascertained I&#8217;m a struggling runner on my very best day; when the humidity is 10 percent, Jupiter aligns with Mars, my inhaler has adequately opened my airways and my tooth hasn&#8217;t fallen out. I&#8217;d been training for The Paint Pittston Pink 5K for months. Finally, my time was whittled down to a respectable length whereby I would not be an embarrassment to myself or to my brother, who is like, the fastest man in the valley and a cross country coach.</p><p>My older son came home from school to accompany me on this run. I was so thankful he did this to support his mother. What a good boy!</p><p>So thoughtful &#8212; until the starting gun went off. I turned to ask him how to start the song list on my complicated phone and all I saw were skid marks. So much for being my comrade in agony. That boy left me, quite literally, in his pink dust.</p><p>These people are deadly serious about running. I thought this was a fun run to raise buckets of bucks for a groundbreaking breast cancer vaccine. Aren&#8217;t we just supposed to trot along, smug in the knowledge we aren&#8217;t marathoners, but our donations are helping to find a cure for BC? After I was elbowed out of the way by an elderly woman clutching a rosary, and two men pushing strollers, I knew this was as serious as &#8212; breast cancer?</p><p>Still, I chugged along, and after the first agonizing 500 feet, I thought I was ready to retire. What the heck? When did both bridges become inclines? It doesn&#8217;t feel that way when I&#8217;m racing across them in a car. After the bridges, I felt sure I was going to be OK. (I&#8217;d run this race before and apparently erased it from my short term memory forever). Then, I saw before me what I believed was my punishment for all the horrible things I&#8217;ve ever done in my life, including, but not limited to, stealing my parent&#8217;s Peach Schnapps throughout all of 12th grade.</p><p>I looked straight into the eyes of Satan, whose middle name was Swallow Street. It&#8217;s called Swallow Street because I swallowed my pride and had to stop. I had to stop because my banana nut muffin was going to make a reappearance.</p><p>Why was no one else crying? I don&#8217;t get it.</p><p>I wiped the pink dust from my contacts, looked around and tried to catch someone else&#8217;s glance in order to commiserate. I did meet the fleeting eyes of a couple of fourth-graders, but what they looked at me with was not a feeling of shared misery, but pure sympathy.</p><p>They said: &#8220;You can do it, Grandma&#8221; but with the blood pounding in my ears, I couldn&#8217;t be sure. They may&#8217;ve been saying: &#8220;Get your Geritol, Granny.&#8221;</p><p>Whatever.</p><p>I will continue to fight the fight and race this race until I open up Time magazine one day and see the headline: &#8220;Breast Cancer Cure.&#8221; It&#8217;s worth my sweat and anxiety and whining. Plus, I didn&#8217;t poop my pants, so I gave myself a medal.</p><p>Win-win.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Maria Jiunta Heck</p><p>Life Deconstructed</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Maria Jiunta Heck of West Pittston is a mother of three and a business owner who lives to dissect the minutiae of life. Send Maria an email at mariajh40@msn.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Life Deconstructed: A warm-up for some, a marathon for me