I ran in a local 5K with my wife this morning. We can both thank our friend Sara for lending us her car (we have been carless -- and careless-- for 9 months), because without it, we would have never trucked out to Orange, CT for this race. More on that little car in a bit. Arrived 45 minutes before the start and was directed to park in an adjacent snow-covered field. Feeling that the race directors wouldn't allow cars to be parked on muddy terrain, I turn right and follow the car in front of us. At that moment, we both notice that the 3 inches of snow is covering roughly a foot or so of mud. Our friend's little volkswagon jetti quickly slumps down and we start slipping and sliding until we find some a fresh patch of snow. Eventually, park the car at a weird angle relative to the everyone else's SUV and start warming up. We both jogge a mile or so before the race, wondering to each other whether that car will ever leave that lot. The course was downhill for the first mile, slightly uphill for most of the second, hilly for the third (including a short but steep hill near the end of the third mile), and then downhill for the last .1. According to their website, I finished in 21:51. My mile splits, according to my garmin, were 6:44; 7:08; and 7:00 (avg 6:58/mi). I would like to eventually run three 6:44 miles, but I'm not there yet. Even during the first mile, I never felt like I was moving that fast. I even thought I was running at a constant pace until I reached the second mile marker. Whoops. My wife, who doesn't run but is in good overall shape, finished in 25:00, a good showing for a non-runner. But, overall, it was a good race. Only two people passed me: one on mile 1 and the other after the hill on mile 2. Both people were (1.) boys, aged less than 18 and (2.) one of the few wearing only shorts and short-sleeves. I tried to catch up to the kid who passed me on the hill but he must have heard my huffing and puffing b/c as I closed in, he took off and finished at least half a minute in front of me. You could eat your weight in chili if interested after the race. Since the finish line blocked the exit from the parking lot, we thought we could wait, eat some chili and then deal with that car later. Wrong. By the time we made it back to our car, half the parking lot was empty, the field no longer frozen but a sea of mud, fit only for monster trucks. Long story short, with the help of two people, lots of going from reverse to drive and back again, a bunch of fishtailing, a close call with another car that seemingly was surfing on the mud like us, one close call with a race official who was directing traffic, and one epic surge to leave the muddy lot, we fishtailed our way home. Should have kept my heart rate monitor on during the process. We still have the car for a week but we're going to stick to the streets. | 