Independence (Day)

Words take on a whole new meaning sometime. I won't go into anything deep or heavy right now, but yeah, today independence means taking back something I had lost somewhere along the way.

Anyway...after a grrrrrrreat evening which soured later on, leaving me with very little sleep, as I woke up this morning before the alarm I thought "hmpft. Stay in bed. No need for you to go through with this. Not today." My head and my heart were fighting each other, and I am still not clear on who will win out in the end but this morning my head is what got me dressed and out the door to make the Run Wild 5K that I registered for yesterday.

A lovely morning for sure...rain was moving in fast and furious and the humidity was right about 95% and with the temps at 75 deg, well you figure it out. I met up with the usual suspects, chatted, complained and just overall bitched about exactly why I didnt want to be there.

Even up till yesterday I had no expectations whatsoever for this race. I just wanted to finish without embarrassing myself and to be able to forget about what happened at the Heights Run over a month ago. I figured if I could maintain a decent pace I would come out of this feeling like I had won even if it was in my own mind.

Finally the race started and it was hard getting out of the pack. It seemed like almost to the first mile marker before I could really get out of the crowd. I could have gunned it to do that but I knew from previous experience that that would come back to bite me somewhere in the middle of mile 3. So I just kept the first mile nice and easy. I believe the mat time for Mile 1 was just shy of 9:40...steady was what I said for mile 2. You can pick it up later...Only did I not factor in that this was about the time that the humidity would really take over and I was finding it difficult to really breathe well.

I dont recall what the mat time was at Mile 2 (and I dont have my Garmin in here right now for the splits), but I remember thinking I am cool with that. So much so that I figured now just the last 1.1 and you're done. I am quite sure that my Garmin is going to show over 3.1 due to all the turns and the fact that I was not familiar with the course and more often than not I found myself having to cross back over way too many times to make the turns.

Other than the enormous amount of turns I was pleased with the course. So in Mile 3 I just picked it up a bit, nothing crazy. Just finish. With only about a 1/2 mile to go I figured you know, what the hell just run this bitch out and get it over with. Thinking back now if I had pushed it in that first 1/2 of mile 3 I could have PR'd. But that wasnt a goal today and yes I know it should have been.. Anyway, in that last 1/2 mile I did what I would have done if HSteve would have been beside me yelling at me to pick off this person and that person. I started picking people off.

So to make a short story long, I missed my PR by 5 seconds. I came in at 30:22. And yeah, I am REAL pleased with that shit. My PR is 30:18 and considering the conditions? Hell yeah I will take that and all the beer M and I drank too afterwards.

I remember crossing the mat and as the girl was taking my chip off, I heard the announcer say, and here comes the last of the first 250 finishers of todays race. Well if that was a milestone for him to mention, then by God I was one of those first 250 finishers today...and not sure how many there were but it was close to 700 if not more.

We of course stayed till everyone else was gone because thats just what we do. Too many friends to hang out with, congratulate and just have a bit of fun. Runners are crazy people I tell you. We really are. Who else stands out in the pouring rain, smelling of all kinds of hell and drinking beer and listening to really bad cover music?

Oh and I ended up with a door prize too. Thankfully some girl had her wits about her to tell me that since I didnt hear them call my number (eh, 4 beers will do that to you)... 2 Astros tickets. You know how I love me some Astros.

Yeah I will be probably be running the Lunar next Saturday, then after that its smooth sailing till sometime in September.