Season Ending...

The season is over and surprisingly the phrase that one would expect to hear of "Season Ending Injury", was never mentioned. That's an accomplishment by itself as far as I'm concerned. You know I like numbers, that's a total of 366 miles over the past four months. Impressed by that? How about an even more impressive stat of 14 races completed? Damn! Then lets talk about the bling. Two firsts, four seconds, and three thirds. That's a nice medal wall.

I'm not exactly sure of when the goal became running a 5K in under twenty minutes, but it was probably soon after getting 21:30 in my first 5K after the marathon. That was the goal, but this season is going to end with the closest I could get being a 20:02. I just wasn't able to break into the 19's. Sure, I'm disappointed, but in the end it's difficult to train for three (.1) miles of speed and twenty-six (.2) miles of distance at the same time. Doesn't seem like it should be, running should be running, but it is.

The consolation prize is sweet though. Running as many races as I did help my chances in the championship series run (ha pun) by the local runner's group. How you do in each race scores points based on how you do. After the season is over, those points are tallied and the top three people get awards for their age group. There are some seriously fast guys in my age group. I could quit my day job, train full time, and still wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating them. I wasn't very optimistic of my chances, but through some miracle of at least lowering my times to be decent and luck of some of those really fast guys not running all the races they could, I came in third. WOOT!

The next marathon is around the corner and I suppose that will be the true end to the season. But I'll also let you in on a little secret...summer might be over, but the running season is far from over!

Witness

I've made it thirty-six years without having to experience anything horrific. No major accidents, about the worst I can think of was a kid breaking his arm growing up. Right place, right time? Maybe. Or just lucky all this time, I guess. In a blink of an eye, that streak ended this weekend.

It started off as a typical weekend, a race on Saturday in the morning. Neither CT or I were feeling "it" prior to the race starting. We were able to cheer for two of our friends who ran the 10K before our race started, so that was a nice change. Then we also got to visit with some new friends we meet running races. During the run, I felt better than I did all weekend. My legs felt good and I remember feeling a sense of freedom. It didn't feel like I had the energy or desire I needed to really push it, but things felt smooth and very comfortable. I had ran this course before, not this race, but this course. I replayed that in my mind as ran, remembering where I had trouble before and smiling as I felt at peace this time. You know I want in the 19's bad, again I finished close, but that didn't bother me as this run plain felt good for me. CT came chugging along shortly after. We met up with our two running partners and started sharing our stories, then the unthinkable happened...

"Call 911!" Came the shout. Standing only a few feet from the finish line, a man had collapse on the ground. At first thought, somebody is overreacting. Then it switches to, this is serious, but I'm sure he'll be alright. All too soon it becomes something I've never had to deal with this before, I'm witnessing somebody passing away before my very eyes. There's nothing I can do, completely helpless to change the outcome of this situation. That was a horrible feeling and then I felt guilty for even watching. This is where runners instinct took over and I actually had to run out of the reality of the situation to get away.

Checking the news later, he did in fact pass away. 42 years old, wow. I can't imagine. There are a couple of things that are going to stick with me forever, even though I'm writing them down here. Running started as a way to promote myself staying healthy, by forcing myself not to spend hours sitting behind the computer. Witnessing this event, only reminds me that I picked the correct course. The second, life can change in a blink of an eye. It's one of those things that always gets said, but this was another reminder to make every moment count. The last and most disturbing mental image from this whole event was watching how small and insignificant we are. Not sure if that's a problem with society as a whole, but it seemed wrong to be watching a life hanging in the balance, meanwhile the announcer is still calmly calling out names as people cross the finish line. Is that a reminder that life goes on, or it's some cruel joke? Either way, that was surreal and the part struck me hardest.

It was a good run, but the streak had to end at some point. My thoughts go out to the guy and his family.

The Path

Running should be simple, maybe that's why I like it, one foot in front of the other, repeat. Easy enough. It never is though. Is it only the theory that's easy part? The execution is anything but. Maybe, I'm not doing it right. Maybe, that's just the way it is. Maybe, it's suppose to be like this, easy in concept, difficult in practice.

When I think about the big picture, it's hard not to see similarities between running and life. Both have successes, failures, lessons, ups, and downs. Both should be easy, yet no matter how hard you train or plan, there is always going to be something unexpected that makes it complicated, not to mention the unknown. It's here that I'd say at least with running, there's a set start and finish, but that's not necessary always true either. The path in running holds just as much uncertainty at times as life. Where am I going with this? I don't know, but feelings wise, I think I'm at some kind of crossroad. The past couple of weeks it seems like lots of soul searching, almost trying to find a new identity.

This weekend featured two runs, a race and a long run. I didn't feel like I had good training runs this week. I can't explain the reason, they just felt blah. I wasn't confident going into the race this weekend. This happened to be the first race that I had ran before, so I knew the course. From an improvement standpoint, I knocked three and a half minutes off my time from last year. Running it though, I had high hopes of getting my record time, but didn't even come. That was very disappointing.

The next day, the thought of running twenty miles had me scared. The first sixteen, I felt surprisingly good. Though not nearly as fast as a 5K race pace, it's hard to understand why things felt good. Trust me, I wasn't questioning it too much and decided to go with it. With four to go, my legs got tired and I would have loved to pop some ibuprofen, so the last few weren't pretty, but they got done. This coming marathon has me nervous. Want to talk about the unknown, this is it.

Different blog entry for me this time. Head feels like it's got tons of data to crunch on a slow processor. Think I need a run to clear my head ;)