Unlike the Boss, I Wasn't Born to Run

You can’t get in shape in a week. JSG and EJG signed up for a race but due to scheduling conflicts JSG couldn’t run. I agreed to fill in and then promptly forgot about the race. Fast forward a month to six weeks later and I was reminded about the race – this was last Friday I think. I did my best over the week. I did weights. I did cardio. I even lost four pounds. It was all for naught. I had assumed the beach race was a 5k, and what happens when we assume? Exactly, it wasn’t a 5k it was a 5 mile. Five kilometers is easy, it’s fun. Five miles isn’t fun, it’s long and grueling. Pluto is a something like five and a half miles from the sun. This wasn’t a race I was looking forward to.

We got to the beach an hour before the race, got a good parking spot, and headed to the pavilion. We got there early enough for me to warm up properly. I felt great, and then the race started. I saw MJ, CJG, and LMJ about ¼ of a mile after the start so I was fresh enough to mug for the camera. If they had been ½ of a mile out the pictures wouldn’t have looked so good. I was already starting to feel like crap. I hit the one mile marker at 11 plus minutes and knew that I had a minimum of 44 minutes of hell ahead. My very first race was 5 miles and I finished in less than 50 minutes, but I was in better shape for that race. There were people frolicking on the beach with their dogs, and I wished I had a dog sized heart, because my human sized heart seemed to have a hitch in its giddy up. The worst part is that the race was a straight half way out and half way back so I couldn’t even quit because I had to get back whether I was in the race or not. I also wanted to run a decent time for JSG and 59 minutes plus isn’t a decent time for a 5 mile race.

The best part is that I have force fed my workouts into my schedule, and sometimes LMJ is just going to have to come along for the ride, but this has produced issues of its own that deserve their own post.