I was hoping to beat a 14 minute mile today... I think I shattered that completely. I was starting to get nervous because I usually don't tell anyone my goals until after the race (less pressure, right?) - but I started running off my mouth about this one. The closer I got to the race, the more nervous I got too. Eventually, I just got my game face on and mellowed out. I'm not sure what happened today, but around the halfway point, I turned my hat around to keep it in my mind that it's all about going home at that point. Somewhere around mile 2 I went into some sort of zombie runner mode and just concentrated on nothing else other than moving one leg at a time. Step, step, step. Step, step, step. Step, step, step. Step, step, step. Over and over again. I made it to the 2 mile mark before I got lapped by the first 10k runner, but he was flying. I have never seen anyone run that fast in person ever... It would be almost another quarter of a mile before I would start to recognise the people that had usually lapped me by that point. As I hit the 3 mile mark and rounded the corner into the park, I could see the time clock and it had 40 minutes and something on it. 40 minutes and change?? WTF?? :) As I crested the hill, the lady I got the gatorade for last month came back to run in with me. It was a very cool thing. As I approached the finish line, she gave me a pat on the back and I just motored the last 15 - 20 yards. After crossing the line and stopping my watch, I turned around to salute the course. I was elated when I saw that I had broken 42 minutes!!! I felt like I wanted to eat, throw up, cry and pass out all at the same time.

One cool thing about last month's race was that it was someone's birthday and they gave her a head start :) They called out a guy today and I thought, cool, another birthday. Not the case. He was shipping out to Iraq in 2 weeks. He got his head start and the announcer said that he (the announcer) would feel better letting this runner go to Iraq if the runner had some experience being chased by 400 people :) Needless so say the runner got plenty of appplause.

Not a thing...

Walked around a little bit. Came out of my zombie runner stupor with some Oreos, chicken noodle soup and half a bagel with peanut butter.


What kind of question is that?? Didn't you read the race report?? :)


After today's race, anyone who had participated in at least 3 races were invited to a FREE buffet at a local restaurant. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay because of prior commitments, but I thought that was very cool. Out of the 4 races, if I had to pick which race I though was my best, I would actually pick the first one. Even though the race I ran today was certainly my best 5k performance-wise physically, finishing the first one (and more importantly, not quitting) with a mangled ankle definitely meant more to me. But that's not to say that today's race was totally kick a$$ :)