The gauntlet is over! Two marathons, a 25K, and a half marathon in the span of about five weeks. One would think the above picture is a celebration for surviving, but really it's a tribute to one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption. You know the scene, "Andy Dufresne, the man who crawled through 500 yards of shit and came out clean the other end", the moment he emerges from the sewer pipe, only to stand in this pose as the rain washes him clean of his false incarceration becoming a free man. Okay, I really didn't accomplish anything as traumatic as a prison stint, but my tribute is damn relevant being as two of these races took place in torrential downpours.
There isn't much of a story for today's race. From the start, it was obvious we were going to get dumped on by the rain. Not wanting to even take a chance of a repeat of Nipplegate, ditched the shirt and modesty at the starting line. This race is small to begin with, add the crummy weather, and I was fairly certain nobody would be tortured with looking at my semi-naked body for too long.
Insert Spring rain sound for the starting gun, awww so peaceful, here we go. CT had a specific time goal in mind and has been doing her typical stressing over getting that time. For myself, no such goal, other than an idea of what would be a likely time for myself. About a quarter mile in, I could sense that she was pacing herself off of me and was starting much too fast for her goal and ultimately running a sensible race. In hindsight, I probably should have slowed her down and ran with her. Instead, I could feel people crawling up my back and that made me paranoid that I'd have run hard today. At this point I decided to pass her, casually mention that she should slow down, and I'd see her at the finish.
The sky opened up and let a down pour happen for a few miles. Somewhere around four, I took a peak back to see if I could see CT. Even for being a very straight course, the rain hindered visibility enough that I could barely make her out. She's been battling an injury, so honestly that was my check to just make sure nothing horrible happened. While I was worried about her, then it got in my head how close the next guy was to me. I did start out a little slower to keep an eye on her, by this point, I was at race pace and didn't expect anybody to be around me (already knew the two "kids" were hell and gone and there was no catching them).
Kept my pace at race pace, figuring if he wanted to stay close, we'll see how long he can last. In the back of my head, I did wonder how long I'd be able to maintain, my body has been tired with number of hard runs I've done in this stretch. At six, I turn to peak, motha #&^!, still see him, did gain some distance, but he was still visible. At eight, when I checked, finally couldn't see him, which is good because my body started to ask questions. Rest of the miles, eased back a little and simply maintained.
Crossing the line, it was almost spot on what I expected. Overall, it felt a bit harder than it should have, but it's been a full season. Even if motivated, doubt that a PR would have happened, kind of glad I didn't try. Running back out to see CT, I really expected to see her coming in a first woman. The second I saw a different woman running at me, knew this wouldn't be good for her because that woman was right at about the time CT was hoping for. Only had to wait a few more runners before I saw her coming. Was greeted to a very emotional CT, haven't seen this side very often. Knew she struggled, mainly with the injury she's been fighting, but mentally, she puts way too damn much pressure on herself going after a time that even healthy is close to her limit. The hug only lasted a couple seconds, felt longer, but she broke it off worried that somebody would pass her...that's my girl!
She put on a good game face, finished strong and we both walked away with first places in our age group. After what feels like a long training season, an even longer race season, time to roll the credits on this season/movie!
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