Statue to Statue 15K

The South's Toughest 15K
That's what my T-shirt says, and it's probably telling the truth. Nine miles in the mountains of Birmingham. Or at least the Really Steep Hills of Birmingham.
It is odd to have been in that much pain and enjoying it.
First, we slept terrible last night. The Boy kept us up for hours, crying,whining, feeling and acting a little feverish. At 4:30am when we got up Noah was still feeling bad, and felt warm. So Denise backed out of the race to take care of him. I got to the race site at 6:30am, and stood around and shivered with other strangers for an hour and a half till the race started. (When we signed up, they told us to be early since it was not a circular course, you would ride a charter bus to the starting line. If you missed a bus, you missed the race)
Did I mention it was cold? It was cold. One of the drawbacks to losing weight is when you do shed the fat parka, you get cold like an old woman. So I did not look as robust and healthy as some of the other guys and gals running about mostly naked in spandex or less, but I didn't care. I proudly wore my sweatshirt and huddled around my free cup of coffee trying to stay warm. Thus, I gravitated to the 50 year old guys, who were also wearing sweats and huddling around coffee. Does that make me secure in my manhood, that I don't need to prance around half naked? Or old? I suspect you can't have one without the other. Or shouldn't anyway.
I digress. But it was cold.
The old dudes I was with did confirm this was one of the toughest races out there. Nice. Encouraging.
We started (I shed my sweatshirt seconds before)and the first 3-4 miles were great. Nice rolling hills, and the course ran through one of the Old Money Neighborhoods of Birmingham. I have only been in a few "real" races like this (2 or 3 5Ks, and the half marathon) and I find I really enjoy the energy of a race. Everyone is upbeat and positive, the shared goal, encouragement from strangers, and free water & Powerade every 3-4 miles. I like it.
The bad hills were in miles 5-7. And they were bad. But I only had to walk up two of the worst, the others I gutted it out and ran up. More Powerade at the Top!
Miles 7-9 were mostly downhill, which sounds good but is actually tricky to do.
You are trying not to fall forward, trying to slow yourself down all the time. Maybe there is a trick to it, but I was not a fan.
Overall I felt ridiculously good til the middle of mile 8, when everything got hard. The hills were over, and the ground was a bit more level, but I was starting to hurt. Me and the little pack of folks I was in were starting to worry about how much more there was, when we saw the 9 mile mark, and happily only had 0.3 miles left. Again downhill, but we just ran fast and I finished strong. And then drank lots of water. And consumed bananas and apples till they looked at me funny. And limped around the parking lot trying not to cramp up. My left knee has some torn cartilage, so it decided to be unhappy once I finished. (still aches a little right now, a little stiff, Ice is a good thing)
Mostly at the end I felt very proud of myself, had this wonderful sense of accomplishment and really missed my wife for I was mostly alone in a group of fit, half-naked strangers.

My official stats can be found here, but my time was 1:36:04.3
I was not near the front, but not completely in the back. I ran my 10 minute mile pace that I had trained for, and felt good about running my race and not trying to beat the other gazelles around me.

Unfortunately, The Boy still isn't feeling well, so any celebrating will be done later, if at all. But it was a good time, a new happy memory, a good accomplishment and a cool T-shirt. Not bad for a Saturday morning.

Sugarholics

I can't think of a witty comment that doesn't overstate the obvious. The old man was right. He was ahead of the conventional wisdom on alot of things. Downright nutty on alot of things too, but as we are finding out, nutty doesn't always equal wrong.

Friday Confessional

I've been a single parent for a few days while Denise is off performing her Maiden/Matron Of Honor duties for her BFF's wedding this weekend.
And I guess I'm cracking under the pressure.
I had...A piece of cheese!!! It was in my Lentil and Organic beef spaghetti sauce that I had to warm up and eat inbetween whining fits. The Boy was whining, not me. Not much anyway.
I've also had...Cereal the past two mornings with milk! Kashi Go Lean Cereal with organic 1% milk, only one measured cup per morning.
And Yesterday I had Subway for lunch, split a footlong Sweet Onion Teriaki without cheese but with every veggie except Cucumbers and Green Peppers. Had the first half for lunch, the second half ~3 hours later at my desk.
Also...I know, the mind boggles that there could be something else, but I have barely exercised the last few days. Monday was good, ran 6 miles in 60 minutes. Bootcamp Tuesday morning. Wednesday 100 pushups/100Squats/3 min back bridge in 15 minutes. Yesterday and probably today, nothing. In the grand scheme of things, a few days off is no big deal. But I did pledge everyday. And I have a 15K run next weekend through the mountains in Birmingham, which boasts itself as The South's Toughest 15K. Joy. Hopefully I'll get to walk around the columbia zoo tomorrow with The Boy. Somthing is always better than nothing.

So there you go True Believers, a friday confessional to hopefully prompt all of us to stay on the straight and narrow this weekend.

Excelsior!!