Oracle of Malvern Before leaving for the race today, Josie and I made a burnt offering to Arthur Laffer, the father of Supply-Side economics and then consulted her 8 ball oracle. The question was whether or not I was going to win the race. The answer was at first cloudy in the blue food coloring and then the plastic triangle of fate pressed up against the Chinese-made Plexiglas and gave us the answer in the picture -- "Outlook not so good." Outlook not so good ran through my mind as I pulled up to the Malvern VFW. Outlook not so good when I registered for the race and bumped up against a runner that I recognized from the Philly Track Club website and recall associating 14 minute 5k PRs with his visage. Outlook not so bloody good when I left the registration room and caught sight of the winner of the last 5k I ran down here. $25 is 3rd. Outlook not good on that when in comes two other guys from the parking lot. They carry racing flats and the defined chasm between their tensor fasciae latae and their quadriceps resembles the relief map of the Grand Canyon. Gimcrack at least? Outlook good on gimcrack? Please? I get lost during my pre-race ritual of finding the bathroom as soon as possible. I end up in the mother of all VFW bars -- spigots of PBR, Rolling Rock in front of hulking masses of aged Veterans staring me down as they gulp and discuss that damned T.O. above homeade "NO GAMBLING" signs. I use the bathroom adorned with countless plaques of men saluting various flags -- their hair, short and neat in WW2,grows ever bushier and wilder as the turbulent 60s approach, and then recedes indirectly proportional to their waistlines during the 80s and 90s. I head outside and do some futile striders anticipating my strider pace to be the winning race pace. A cardtable that has propped up countless greasy, inebriated Veterans' elbows during illegal games of poker sits out of place outside. A boombox is playing ZZ Top's "Legs." Lynrd Skynrd, the Eagles, and CCR await their turn. 'Dick,' one of those race directors that you find all over the fruited plan, shows up with a bullhorn and leads us to the start. He gives a long speech explaining to us that the 5k finishers go to the left and the 1 mile finishers go to the right. He isn't done and explains various memory techniques that we can all use to remember that 5k finishers go to the left and 1 mile finishers go to the right. As he's going on with one more technique about how to best remember this guidance, I size up the top guys. Philly Track Club actually lines up behind me. I look at the tensor fasciae latae brothers and they give me another tour of the world's deepest canyon while they joke amongst themselves about the prize money for 3rd place. The bullhorn proclaims the start and we are off. I tuck in behind the top 3 guys and let them split the mild wind. Philly Track Club is behind me and he's barely breathing heavy. 5:02 first mile. Philly passes me and guns into the lead. It's a pack of 4 for the first 1.5 miles. I'm behind them in 5th. Little do we know, but we are gradually running downhill. As we make a turn to the right I see the hills ahead of me. This course is a siren bitch. She subtly calls you into the downs as you groan away under the barrage of oxygen debt and then at the moment when the bamboo rod from the VFW Vietnam trophy case hammers into your fingernail, she gives you a monster hill to climb. Mile 2 is one big ass uphill (10:17 split). I don't think I've ever hit a hill in the state I was in. I saw my shadow in the rising, autumn sun as I bent forward under the gravitational assault -- my form had broken. My arms splayed all over the place and all I remember thinking is that my hair is getting so long that a tuft of helmet hair is showing in my fugly shadow. The previous 5k winner had dropped off and stayed about 10 seconds in front of me. The rest of the 3 were racing for the win. We make the final turn and see the 3 mile sign. I hit 14:59 and have enough sense in me to know that it wasn't the real 3 mile mark. The last .1 is pure uphill and I come across the line (to the left) and notice that 'Dick' had started the clock a minute late. I came across in 15:14, got excited for 1 second then saw my watch at 16:14. 5th overall. I catch Bill, congratulate him and get invited to run with the top 3 guys on a 3 mile cool down. I sit behind them as they make their chariot-winged triumph threaded backwards under the tree-lined arches along the course giving the finishing, mortal masses, 'Good Jobs.' I listen as they pontificate on previous races run at impossible, harefooted paces. I attend the VFW pancake breakfast, actually eat scrapple, and walk away with my little medal of gewgaw with the press-on plate that is already coming off stating "RACE AGAINST ARTHRITIS 2005." My real award for the day is meeting Bill as we eat our pancakes. He quietly tells me to come run with the Philly Track Club. He tells me I'd fit right in. -------------------------- Spent the rest of the day with Josie, Bobo, and Tippet at a school playground. Josie played with new-found friends, Tippet chased tennis balls and pooped a million times, and Bobo ran around in a futile attempt to get 'somewhere' in his little yellow, plastic SDI sphere purchased with supply-side cash* * footnote: -Necessary run-on sentence to follow. Please make no comments regarding my use of the supply-side analogy. I don't understand macro and micro economics and do not consider myself qualified or proficient in economic principles because I lack an MBA. I was rejected by the big MBA schools because I 'lacked business experience' serving my country plus I carrry a large credit card balance so that kinda validates those high and mighty admissions boards that instead admitted the crafty, pre 9-11 left-leaning-when-it-was-popular, politically-correct, 'diversity'-dropping essayist who penned about his business venture selling Chinchillas to the up-and-coming Argentinian Proleteriat (No joke on this one. I was furnished this example of what B schools are looking for. Jumping out of airplanes at 3am with an M4 carbine slung around your back, a 100lb rucksack webbed between your legs, and a responsibility to lead the assault on a simulated enemy strongheld 150 meters off of Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg before the country woke up to this kinda stuff and order such a raid (see Oct 19th, 2001), wasn't one of them).