A Reminder

A friend of ours in her early 50's passed away this week from cancer. My wife flew out to California this morning for the Memorial Service tomorrow. A realization of our mortality and fragility is a motivator behind my participation in racing and its community. Racing is play, we need to play while we can.

So speaking of play, I was able to run around a track for a while last night. Yippee. The fourtieth edition of the LP run is in the record books. I strode onto the track as defending champion Clydesdale. Alas a couple of bigger (in running speed, not size) guns showed up to race. Dang it, I was hoping Vic and I could generate a blogger sweep like last year, when Jon, Bill and I took home all the hardware. Nevertheless, I took third and ran faster than last year.

Better yet, Veronica Hoge used her post pregnency leftover poundage to squeek into the Reubens division and ensure a Friends of Joe sweep of the Reubens award. Veronica took first and multi-sport athlete Sarah took second.

Back to my race. I started out way too fast as usual, running a blazing 6:20 pace for the first half mile. From then on it was 7:52 average pace and I completed 4.33 miles in the 33 min and 20 sec time. I am content with the effort and my achilles is not squawking too much.

If I was fully fit, I probably could have gotten second. I was within 10 yards of second place for most of the last 2 miles. However, my opponent knew I was on his shoulder and really opened up a gap in the last 3 minutes. I had nothing left and he did. After the race, he did come over and thank me for pushing him as he knew I was gunning for him. You see there were only awards for the top two Clydesdales and I figured I was in third. So it was a real race.

Perhaps I might have had a better chance without the fast start, but what the heck. Enough woulda, shoulda, coulda nonsense. I thought I was Pre for a half mile and that was cool enough for me.

"There are those of us who are always about to live. We are waiting until things change, until there is more time, until we are less tired, until we get a promotion, until we settle down / until, until, until. It always seems as if there is some major event that must occur in our lives before we begin living.”
Dr. George Sheehan