French Toast

Is my favorite non-meat breakfast food.  With a stupid amount of butter.  But no syrup.  That ruins french toast.  It better be crispy on the outside too.

The Labor Day 5k Thing

On Labor Day, at Emerson Park, there was a 5k.

I ran it.

This is that story.

PART 1:  Will I or Won't I

I went to bed the night before not totally convinced that I would even be running the race.  I'd only been able to run once the entire week prior.  I had posted a good time that morning, but you couldn't say that I was at a peak level of preparedness.  It had been an extremely long week leading up.  Arienne had started her first week at OCC, with all the travel headaches that caused (anyone looking to donate a car for her...or contribute to the purchase of one...let me know).  I had also started a new technique for positive reinforcement for Seth, as the last couple weeks had been rough ones, behavior-wise for him.  It had gone OK at best.

Like I said, it had been a long week.

I woke up around 8:30 or so (I know, weird...very late for me).  The race had a 10am scheduled start.  I was still pretty iffy on whether or not I was going to run it.  My stomach was feeling a little goofy, and I just wasn't feeling it.

I texted Mike, asked if he and Heather would be running in the race.  He replied in the affirmative, so I decided to get my fat ass in gear and get down to the race.  I threw on an orange t-shirt (note to self:  time to get rid of the extremely-fat-guy t-shirts and move to moderately-fat-guy ones), a pair of compression shorts (my new favorite running gear), some mesh shorts over those, and my socks and sneakers (Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11...awesome for over-pronaters).

PART 2:  The Race, or, Is This What Shin Splints Are?

I hit the park around 9:30 or so, and went and registered.  It was only 10 bucks, which is probably the cheapest race I'll ever register for.  For that 10 bucks you got a t-shirt, a mug, some other crap, and they had refreshments and shit.  How this is a fund-raiser (for the high school's cross country team, I think) and is effective, I have no idea.  I went back to the car to drop the crap off and got my number on.  I was styling.

(This is a dramatization...I actually looked much better.  Probably.)

Yup.  Dead sexy.

Mike and Heather showed up a little bit later, got registered and did athlete-y things.  Like stretching and the like.  I sat in a rocking chair.  It wasn't the most comfortable rocking chair ever, but it was pretty nice.  For a rocking chair.  

The course started in front of the pavilion, out along route 34 or 38 or whatever that is, around the ball fields, back in and across to the island, out and around the parking lots and stuff there, back over the first bridge, out and back the first pier, across another bridge, out and back the second pier, around the beach and back to the pavilion.

So it was mostly cross-country, or at least running on grass, which was new to me.

Anyway, me and the 41 other runners lined up and got started.  I kept up a pretty good pace until almost the first bridge.  Just before that bridge, my left shin tightened up.  The muscle cramped, badly.  This was new for me, I had never gotten shin splints before.  Not like this.

It was painful.  By the time I reached the bridge, I really needed to take a walking break, but that hurt more than the running, so I kept it going.

Note:  Not to Scale.  Or Even Really Close to a Scale.  The bridge is actually bigger than that.  And my head isn't that disproportionately larger than my body.  I hope.

Once over the bridge, I took a walk break, which helped eventually, although the muscle didn't really give any.  It just throbbed less.  I made it around the island and back over the outer bridge and out the first pier (against the wind, yikes) and back.  I took my 2nd walk break there, a shorter one this time, and headed out the 2nd pier (yeah...still against the wind) and back.  My pace actually started to pick back up by this point, and I had started tracking a couple down.  Once we got to the beach, though, I slowed down to navigate the  sand, they did not.  After the beach was a loop back to the pavilion, where I would have caught them, but as one of them was a little girl, probably 8 or so, I decided to hang back and not rush in front of them.

I finished in 34:29.  And I wasn't dead last.  Damn near it, but not last.  I also beat my Race for the Cure time by over three minutes, so I was VERY happy with that, especially with that leg cramping.

(Mike took this with his phone.  There's the little girl I didn't beat, but could have.  Time to retire the orange moo-moo too.  Good lord.)

So, overall, I'm happy I decided to do the race, and happy with the time I posted.  It was a good time, and they had freakin' nectarines to eat after.  That was probably the greatest nectarine ever.

I spent the rest of the day grilling and eating and not showering.  I probably should have showered.  I didn't.  

PART 3:  I Only Labelled This Part 3 Because I Started This Whole 'Parts' Conceit And Really Should Keep It Going, Even Though I Realize It Was A Stupid Idea Now

Next race I think will be Seneca Falls.  I wanted to do that Mud Run in Owasco, but the registration fee is way too much.  The Seneca Falls run is October 6th and is only 20 bucks.  After that is the fateful Ithaca Race, which I'll cover in the future, most likely.  That's a special race.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading.