Right is the 5k! Left is the 10k! That’s what the guy with the bullhorn was yelling at the, roughly, half way point in today’s St. Patty’s day run through Evergreen Cemetery, and I had a choice to make. Last week after I skipped the River Run, I pushed my goals out a year and one of the goals was to race at least ten times in ’08, and the St. Patty’s Day race was the first. It was a 5k/10k race where runners chose their distance when they signed up. It was in my vigor, but not so much my vim, to start the year off aggressively so I chose 10k. Choosing a 10k distance on a website is just as easy as choosing a 5k distance, but it’s much harder to run 10 kilometers than it is to run 5. I knew this when I clicked the radio button but didn’t appreciate it. As the week wore on and I was still sore on Friday from my workout on Tuesday I fully appreciated. I thought to myself that choosing the longer distance was stupid and that no one would have thought less of me if I had chosen the shorter distance. This thought ran through my mind right up until I approached the guy with the bullhorn. I could make a right and be done in about four hundred yards or I could make a left and run another 3.4 miles. Well, I decided not to be a rooty-poo candy-ass and I made the left turn, and I’m glad I did. I ran what was basically a second lap through the graveyard and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I didn’t set any wild expectations for this race. I wanted to finish in under an hour and a half. I finished in an hour and six minutes. I ran at a leisurely pace right under eleven minutes a mile. It was laid back and groovy, and if I ever planned on dying and being buried I wouldn’t mind Evergreen Cemetery. But if I do die, I'm not being buried. I want to be thrown, bodily, into the Caribbean Sea where I will be devoured by all manner of sea creature.
5 comments:
Great first line(s). This was a fun race for the cheering section as well. Goal setting is good for your outlook on life.
It seems there is some confusion about my final disposal in the unlikely event I die. I don't want my ashes scattered in the Caribbean. I want my body dumped just like it was a mob hit.
No way you'll be eaten with all that muscle and no fat from the miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of will over terrain you will cover. You will sink and when you finally hit the bottom, you will stand, a monument to creatures everywhere who could not, for a moment, be stopped.
Yay for the 10K LJ! I'm suitably impressed. And that's even better that you actually enjoyed the 3 additional miles you ran. So 1 down, 9 to go, right? Can't wait until you come here to run the Marine Corps Marathon! :-) (There's also the Cherry Blossom 10-mile run every April. But the weather can be hit or miss. When it's nice, it's beautiful. But if it's crappy, it sucks!!!)
Isn't it nice to run at a pace that doesn't make you feel like your chest is exploding? Welcome back to the sweaty world of footraces. Sorry we couldn't trot along beside (behind) you, but EJG insists that he's running to stay out of a cemetery!
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