One to remember

Hey, it's Tuesday and the CR5k was on Saturday, but no one said I had to set a pb in updating the blog... :-)

The bad news about the end of last week was that tiger angel had a bad nerve inflamation in the back of her head that results in excrutiating (and untreatable) pain. It's one of those times when "pharmacist, treat thyself" doesn't work, because there isn't a drug that'll touch it. Consequently, although she laid out her running gear in hope on Friday night, there was no way that she was getting up when the alarm went at 5:45 Saturday morning :-( The good news is that the problem does go away over time, and she's back to her bright and bubbly self again.

I guess if I tried to think rationally about it, then I should say that Saturday morning was mixed for me. I had convinced myself that it was going to be the day that I broke 20:30, and possibly even broke 20:00. I'd even found myself visualising the run during the week, and imagining myself at the 4 k mark and feeling the pain and deciding to break through it... (I think that another word for this is daydreaming :-)) Anyhow, the long and short of it is that I actually ran 21:03, 15 seconds slower than last month. Like I said. Mixed. Not bad, but not what I wanted.

But the truth is, Saturday was one of my highlights of the year. This may not be entirely easy for others to understand, but one of the things that I've really enjoyed about the running community in general and Cool Running in particular is the way that accomplished runners are so accepting of the lesser skilled amongst them. In many ways, I'm much more in awe of someone who I know to be genial and helpful who goes out and runs something spectacular than I ever would be of some stuck-up sporting machine who did the same or better. I was blown away on Saturday to find myself lining up in the 21 minute group with Johnny Dark, Uncle Dave, Eagle, Miss Skarmel and Queen Bee (plus some other no less worthy souls whom I have not watched long enough to start idolising yet :-)

As for the race itself, I spent most of the time playing cat and mouse with Nicho and Evie, with Uncle Dave and Ray leading Papa Luigi way off into the distance, to yet another very well deserved pb. Somewhere between 3 & 4, Nicho dropped off a bit, Johnny Dark went past and Evie and I continued our arm wrestle. I was pretty confident at 4k that I was going to be pretty close to the pb, though all thoughts of smashing it were long gone. Then, we hit the wind...

That last k was such hard going! Straight into a southerly. Instead of doing the 3:50 or 3:55 I was expecting, I think we did 4:15 or something like that. Nicho found an amazing burst of energy and roared past like we were standing still (I love seeing people do amazing things like that). Johnny Dark and I both did our best to catch him, with JD being the more successful by about a second :-)

It wasn't going to be the day that I broke 20 minutes, but it was the day that I ran in exalted company, and I have the feeling that I'll remember it longer than I remember some passing PBs.

sfG