40F, cloudy, dry. Great racing conditions. Warm up: one very slow mile, then moderate with strides and hill bounding. I ran exactly the same time, to the second, as last year's Turkey Trot. Weird. But thanks to the wonderful "depends on who shows up" phenomenon, my time earned me an AG 1st place instead of 2nd this time. This extremely hilly course goes through my own neighborhood, and even within 50 yards of my own house. Familiarity with the course was very helpful. We somehow avoided the 70% rain promised by weather.com in last night's forecast. But there were plenty of puddles. I had my Sealskinz socks on just in case, and felt confident running right through puddles where other runners were going around. :) Mile 1: 7:53 Lung Torture Part 1. Weirdly, surrounded by twelve year old boys for a long time. Time is passing oh so slowly. (This mile had the highest percent of downhill, reflected in splits.) Questioning my sanity for signing up. Mile 2: 8:17 Lung Torture continues. Lots of uphill. A skipped water stop (who needs it?). Here, I am passed by an alien posing as human - we are climbing one of the worst hills on the course and he is pushing a double baby jogger and passes me like I'm standing still. I become aware of how loud my breathing is and wonder if I am annoying the runners just ahead of me. I pass some of them, demonstrating the benefits of panting. Suffering, suffering. Mile 3: 8:14 Legs are a bit tired, but mostly it is near-complete lack of oxygen holding me back. I sense I have a lot of phlegm in my throat but cannot get a big enough lungful of air (without slowing down) to hock it up. Have to snap myself back from fantasies about 20 milers, nice and slow. Hating this. Last .1 7:43 Start to believe in Life After 5K. See a few club member friends near finish. Can't find my "kick" but the last bit is downhill. Over the finish line, I feel so happy to be done, and in a respectable time. The next few minutes I am a phlegm machine. Sheesh, did I run with all that in my throat? So, I have a nice trophy, and a gift certificate to FootZone. (It's almost like getting prize money! I got paid to suffer run!) Obviously, this kind of reward makes the whole thing feel worthwhile, in a shallow kind of way. But when I think I could have run just a little slower and still come in first in my AG, I know I never would want to do that. | 