5-12-2012

So a little over a year ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to run a 5k. I had never run one in my whole entire life. Really I hadn't really run much at all in my whole entire life, but I determined that it was something I needed to do. Most people start running for health or body shaping reasons, but not me. No, I was entirely motivated by the free t-shirt you get for completing the race. To this end, I searched out a race with the most interesting name and coolest shirt I could find. Obviously a glow-in-the-dark shirt named after insects was the holy grail of race shirts, and became the goal my running motivation...and we did it. And got the shirt. And Nicole won her age group after not having raced in ten years.

So that was a year ago. I've run a bunch of races since then, gotten a little faster, and have some how been lucky enough to win a number of prizes. I now have quite a collection of race shirts...but none of them offered quite as amazing of a shirt as the first glow-in-the-dark shirt of my dreams.

So it was pretty exciting to return to my first ever race this year. However, there were complications. A lot of really complicated complications really. See, every race I've run so far has been sequentially faster and faster. I always knew that this trend couldn't last forever, but in the back of my mind, I dreaded the day that I ran a slower race than my previous one. Well, going into tonight's race, I knew that it was bound to happen...and I'll list the reasons why.

1) I've been deathly sick and existing on a diet primarily comprised of cough drops and NyQuil for well over a week now.
2) Work has been crazy. I've been working a bunch of overtime, and even had to work today on the weekend.
3) Since I've been sick/working overtime, I haven't been running at all in the past eleven days. Really, I've only run two days of the past seventeen days.
4) My last race went pretty well (considering I was running though shin splints), and the time was realistically in the range of what I'm currently capable of.
5). This race is in the dark, illuminated by glowsticks like a rave, and on a mix of weird surfaces.

...So yeah, it happened. I ran almost two minutes slower than my last race and crossed the finish line feeling like a failure (regardless of the above listed considerations). I did manage to get this to soften the blow though. Yup, since Nicole was too sick to defend her first place age group prize from last year, I managed to win mine this year. I honestly have no idea how that happened considering I was too sick to get out of bed just a few days ago. To celebrate, we had popsicle and beer bathtime. So even my dreaded first non-PR race didn't end up so badly. I'm still getting over the shock.