The Breakfast of Champions!?

It has been such a busy week I have not had time to write about a splendid running event that took place last Sunday afternoon. As you all know, I have been trying to make some type of sense of my home and projects have taken precedence over eating and sleeping, notice I did not say over running, never would that happen!!

I woke up Sunday and immedately started working on my projects, but keeping my hydration in mind since I planned on running in a local 5K at 1pm. So I worked my butt off and then realized we lost some pieces to fit our bed back together. Had to run out to the hardware store before it closed at 1:00. The store is right next to a local greasy spoon and it was like 10:30, plenty of time to grab some brunch and have it digested before race time. Right...what I didn't plan for was the hour wait for our food. The boys and I all ordered bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches on texas toast with home fries. I only ate half of my sandwich while my oldest son ate his and my other half. He was planning to run the 5k as well. Bad move.

We ran in the Veteran's Memorial Greenway 5K in Willimantic, Ct. It USED to start behind a gym and that's where I rolled in on two wheels at 12:30. No race there. I hypersped to the other gym in town and realized where the race start was moved to. Tommy and I ran to the registration table, grabbed our numbers and t-shirts (it really pays to preregister!) and then ran them back to the car. We had ten minutes to warm up and then head to the start line.

I felt pretty good during the warm up, no full stomach problems. I got to the first mile in 7:05 and then was passing some people and realized I was doing pretty well. There is a turn around at this race, so I started to look at where I was in terms of women. There was only ONE woman in front of me! And I could see her and pass her I did, baby! I passed her right after the turn around and I mean I really passed her. I was afraid I might not be able to keep the speed up but I figured what the hell, I might as well try, right?

I passed mile two at 14:16, wow pretty consistent.

Then I started to suck wind a little, but I really wanted to win. I passed one my training buddies. Then I saw my teenage totally freaking fast long distance runner son, he usually finishes race in 21:05 or so. I was like, oh my goodness, he is hurting. Later he described me coming up behind him as "oh my god the person behind me is going to die" since I was breathing so hard. When he saw the person was me, his next thought was "oh my god, I knew I was sucking out, but I didn't think I was going that slow" ( I usually finish in 24 min.)

I somehow got the words out to have him look behind us and tell me how close the next woman was to us and he told at least 50 feet. I immediately slowed down since I knew I had it in the bag and I thought my lungs might burst if I kept up that pace. I finished the race in 22:40 and was sooooooo pumped. I was proud for like days. The feeling of crossing the line would just pop into my consciousness at random times and it was just great, stupendous, excellent, grande. My kids started teasing me about my foolish grin just crossing over my face.

BUT that was last week, this week brings me to my 20miler, my last long run before Memphis. I am psyched and sick with nerves at the same time, but that is why we do this, right? Right now I am off to play in a setback tourney with Tommy, his ego and stomach have recovered nicely.

Run hard, play harder!