2008 Cinco De Mayo 5k

This was the race that we had decided that Thomas should do, because the kids' run is only a half-mile, and had an event shirt with a running, sweaty cactus on the front, which he finds hilarious.

The kids' run started 20 minutes prior to the main event. At the horn, T sprinted off the line. Given that he's all legs, he'd have a serious advantage and could develop into a decent distance runner if he trained at it, but as it stands now, that kid can sprint fast. Once his sprint was done though, his pace slowed considerably, but I was still impressed that he ran the whole event. I didn't think he would and he totally proved me wrong. Which is great, because the programming is totally working.

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My Stats:

Race Number: 1503
Division F 35-39
Chip Time: 0:25:44
Chip Pace: 8:17
Division Place: 4 / 43
Gender Place: 26 / 314
Overall Place: 91 / 493
Gun Time: 0:27:53
Gun Pace: 8:58
Time to Start Line: 2:09

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I have mixed feelings about this race.

One the one hand, considering the recent bout of tendonosis in my right foot, not having exercised (let alone run) consistently in the previous four weeks, spending the entire 7 days prior to the event in a continuous state of either ridiculously intoxicated or ridiculously hungover, and over-dressing on a deceptively warm day, my pace was only two seconds off my PR time. That's pretty damn good. Not a lot of people can perform that well under extreme levels of self abuse.

On the other hand, I came sooooooo unbelievably close to placing in my division. So.damn.close.

Part of me is totally kicking myself for my wild week. I mean yeah - I grab-assed my friends on poker night(I think they liked it...), I made social plans I don't remember making, I talked to people I don't remember meeting, I drank copious amounts of complimentary top-shelf booze (with no mixers, I don't do mixers), I spanked and grabbed my way through San Diego's finest strippers, I smoked a cigar which was hand-rolled right in front of my eyes by some ancient Cuban man (which was the finest fucking cigar I've ever smoked), I stumbled back to my hotel at no earlier than 3:30am every night and ordered room service food, ate and passed out for my (maybe) three hours of sleep. I had a great time. Amazing.

But I don't have a ribbon. I like ribbons. I like things that say, "yay. you're a winner." Because I am obviously hardwired in that broken way. I look at this result and think, "if you had just pushed a bit harder" and obsess over the spots along the course where I wasted time and shouldn't have, I could have placed.

Sigh. I make it very difficult to be me.

So there it is - the good, the bad and the ugly. All I have left to say is, Carmela Thomas, you are totally my roadkill next year!