He beat me... Straight up

Yesterday, to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I ran a 5k road race in my neighborhood in Somerville.  It started at 11:00am and I was enjoying my first Guinness by 11:45.  I then drank for 11 hours.

The race itself was great; 4000 people ran and the weather cooperated.  I ran my best pace time ever.  At about mile 2, however, something bizarre happened, coincidentally as we ran right past my apartment.  At mile 2, I was passed by a man in a lime green body suit.

As this mass flew past me on my left, I audibly screamed, "No way", letting my fellow runners that I was not going to get beat by this... thing.  So, I upshifted and started running as fast as I possibly could for several hundred feet, and kept pace with him as we started the final hill of the run.

Well, he must have had some extra fuel in the tank because he absolutely took off, vanishing into the crowd ahead of me and not reappearing until after the race had ended.  I had a lot of questions... should I give up recreational running?  Should I give up going anywhere in public? How was he able to see -- that suit had no eye holes???

After crossing the finish line, I made my way through the crowd and towards the bar, and passed a man in a bear costume, and overheard another runner saying, "Well, at least I beat the bear..."

A man in a bear costume also beat me?  I couldn't, and didn't accept that.  Since the bear never passed me on the course, I will just assume that he started way before me and that we had at least comparable finish time.  Unfortunately, there is no way to confirm that as the results page don't list the bear and I don't know his real name.

This was not my most embarrassing "Passed by a costume" experience -- in December on a race on the same course, right around the same point I was passed by a man in giant gingerbread man costume, at least 6 and a half feet tall.  He was carrying a 3 foot long candy cane.