 However, this is one charity race that I run every year because it’s meaningful to me. I’m not going to get into the gory details as to why, so I’m just going to say the race is for a cause that I will most likely support for the rest of my life. Regardless, I’ve been a lazy slug for a very very long time and so I was as ill-prepared for this race as all the other yay-whos running it. And so when I awoke on this fine May the first in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven I knew that this was the perfect day for a new personal worst (PW) in the five kilometer distance. I decided to drive downtown and try and find parking against the recommendation of the race organizers who were pimping the Metro. What the fuck do they know anyway? Clearly nothing, ‘cause I made it from my house (which is 40 miles away) to a prime parking spot right in front of the Washington Monument on Constitution Avenue (score!) in 37 minutes. (Just as a frame of reference to anyone who has never driven in DC, when I worked downtown it would take me 1.5-2 hours to drive the same route unless I left my house at 5AM, in which case it would take 1 hour minimum). About 45 min before the race I did a 1 mile warm up, which felt like dog poop. And then I wandered around until about 20 minutes before the race whereby I found a park bench and lounged there while some chicky did striders back and forth in front of me. We caught each other’s eye a couple of times and there was much disdain (on her part, not mine – I knew I was being a lazy slug). So the plan was to run really easy and then if I was feeling it after the race I’d jog around The Mall, so I started towards the back of the pack. The weather was perfect (low 50’s and overcast). The only thing that would have made it more optimal (for me) would have been if it were a few more degrees cooler. The route itself is a nice one. All DC races generally start out at Freedom Plaza near the Old Post Office building and head towards the Capitol. Then they’ll loop around somewhere and head back. Anyway, to make a long story short, there were no mile markers, so I had no idea what pace I was running, but it felt easy and slow. Around the half way point I caught up to some guy running with his jacket draped over his left arm in a way that one would if he got warm during a Sunday stroll… though truth be told we weren’t running much faster than Sunday stroll speed, so maybe it wasn’t as strange as it seemed at the time. Well, I wanted to at least beat out Sunday-stroll-jacket-carrying-guy and we leap frogged for about half a mile, until I lost track of him (not sure if I finally passed him or vice versa). According to my watch, I crossed the finish very close to plan (almost exactly) and it was most definitely a PW (by at least a minute, maybe more…). But the run felt surprisingly good and I was ready to run some more, so afterwards I grabbed some water and a popsicle and then went for another run around The Mall. |