Race: Healthy Kidney 10K

A simultaneously great and awful run today. Yes, great and awful, twisting together like a strand of DNA. Great and awful caught in some kind of Captain and Tennille duet. Great and awful standing up and performing a faux Siegfried and Roy magic act on a Saturday morning in Central Park. If you get my drift…

I should also say that I didn’t mean to punish myself today. Punishing myself was certainly not intentional. Not something I cooked up in my cauldron of a brain for shits and giggles – a joke to play on the body to amuse the brain at the expense of my hamstrings, quads and lungs. (The joke would be on the brain anyway, since it has to process the pain signals. It can be a little dense that way.)

But something had to be done to drive home the fact that the scatterbrainedness that I have been exhibiting of late had to stop. Today – or should I say last night – was the final straw.

What a week. I was in Austin, Texas for a few days. Barely any sleep, then back to New York and cranking away on various things. No running this week. I just couldn’t fit it in (and I’m going to have to get better at that leading up to November). My right hamstring had been a bit ca-ca, so I decided a break might not be such a bad idea anyway. Easy 10K on Sunday. Nay problem.

Hard weeks need to be slain on the altar of Friday nights. It’s a rule. So I sampled a few frosty bevys last night. Ice cold. Top of the hops. Not a wheelbarrow load, but enough to buzz the control tower of my brain, Maverick-style. Before retiring giddily to my bed at 1:30am, I flipped on ye olde Powerbook to check the time of a 30th birthday party on Saturday.

Buzzy buzzy, holy crappy. There, in my inbox, is an email from the New York Road Runners expressing their excitement at the Healthy Kidney 10K at 9am on Saturday morning. I’m no math whiz, but even I could tell that that was barely 8.5 hours away. And me with no sleep. And me with a buzz on. And me not really mentally prepared to run a 10K first thing in the morning.

I woke at 7am to the melodic ‘blant blant blant’ of my alarm. Nearly talked myself out of going at all. I felt a bit iffy. Made a decision. If I got out of bed and there was rain on the fire escape, I was chucking the whole thing in and playing x-box all day.

There was no rain on the fire escape.

You need to be punished, Noodle. You need to learn to pay attention to your calendar. You need to learn to do more than read emails – you need to absorb the information contained within. You need to know what day events involving physical activity are penciled in for so you don’t down drinks the night before.

Your punishment is to run a 10K today with a fuzzy head.

The race started well, I thought, even if it did take 8 minutes to actually reach the start. The great thing about this race is that it’s always well attended, and there’s a good vibe and a great technical t-shirt to boot. Anyway, because it was a large crowd, the first mile was at a nice hangover pace. Slow and steady. Sweat was beading off my forehead like a madman, but I didn’t feel too shabby.

When I hit mile two, I saw the clock flip to 28.33 and thought wryly about the winner finishing. The course record is 28.10. So no doubt someone is finishing right now. Right when I’m just passing the 2 mile mark.

That boggles my mind. But so does Larry the Lighthouse.
http://larrythelighthouse.com/

I pass him just after mile 2, heading up a hill my stomach doesn’t want to run up. I feel not so hot. Anyway, today Larry’s running with Wendy the Windmill. I shoot them a glance. Squash the bad run vibes oozing through my body into a small pocket in my stomach. Hey, if they can run it 10K with all that junk on, I can run it with a slight hangover. Pull yourself together, Noodle!

The next 4 miles go like that. Feel bad, drink water at fluid station, feel better. Feel bad, drink water at fluid station,
pour cup over head, feel better. It also doesn’t really help that my right hamstring is being a total bitch to me. Uphill is fine. Downhill it’s being a whiny little cow. I tried not to aggravate it too much.

I was pretty buggered at the finish. But overall, I’ll say it was great because not only were there moments during the run where I was actually enjoying myself, but I managed to get out of bed and actually drag my sorry arse up to the park for this event.

The course record was broken today, before I even got to mile 2. Dude got a $20,000 bonus check. 6.2 miles in 28.08? Now THAT blows my mind.