1st overall. 13th Community Run 5k in Wilmington. 16:54. 6 miles afterwards on the treadmill in 42 minutes progressing from 8:00 down to low 6s. 9 miles for the books today. ---------------------------------- I'm not upset at my time today. Anyone that wins 2 races within 3 days no matter how small the field or how ridiculous the competition and complains about times, deserves to be silenced from blogging forever. I'll take my miniscule medal and my 16:54 and ease back tonight while pretending that I'm drinking Falernian wine instead of Barton and Guestier. Excuses: -Torrential downpours throughout the race. -Flooded streets requiring triple jumps or M1 Abrams blitzkriegs when negotiating the seas for puddles. -Complete pre-race apathy towards pretty much everything. -Gusting winds all over the place. -Racing on tired legs. -Racing within a span of 3 days. -Performing a 1200 on stage at the cemetery theater yesterday to a sellout crowd. -Really easing off at the end just to enjoy things for once. -1 jelly donut 40 minutes before the race. ---------------------------------- Rundown. In other words, more words than seconds in the entire race. Therefore, pretty much more boring drivel about a non-event on a rainy day.... The wonderful weather of yesterday gave way to apocalyptic showers this morning. I like running in the rain so I wasn't phased. But hearing the occasional moaning of the wind down the same streets at 5am forced me to shake my head and pound my pillow. I came close to bailing on it all together. It hit me when I was in Dunkn' Donuts. I had my pre-race coffee in hand and when the Indian cashier with a few orb-like, golden pinky rings containing opaque stones asked me in a throaty manner, "What else wouullld you like?" I pretty much decided that I was done with racing for a while. I looked up at the tray of donuts and under that yellow, artificial light of yet another food trough in generica, and decided to change paths and turn my ship back home. I ordered a jelly donut, walked outside and wolfed it down--one big ass bite. Traces of jelly and sugar fell onto my fugly, two-dollar store pants and I looked down for a moment staring at the coagulated lard thinking about opening miles, gimcrack, slower times and a solidifying reputation as a newly indoctrinated has-been or never was. I went on and considered all the better runners that will always be better, the complete silliness of this endeavor, and, most ominously--the foolish selfishness of it all. The selfishness, it bothers me sometimes--it really does. Now back in my car at a red light listening to some tired, reshuffled tunes from Bowie when he was uncertain if he was a man or a woman or both... I wavered still. I kept hearing the plastic clacking of the turn signal and the swishing of the windshield wipers as they flung drops of water onto the rusted car with the illegal immigrant mushroom farmers beside me. I stared at my flats in the passenger seat with the deep red skid marks of the Upper Merion track streaked across their bottoms. I took a deep breath, wiped the Dunkin lard off my pants, and, at the last minute, I changed the direction of the turn signal. I was in. The race was in downtown Wilmington--again. At the registration table, I handed my paperwork to the poor race director who was doing just about everything herself. She quickly wrote my name down on my bib and thrust it out without looking at me. I was registered with a name that contained an impossible permutation and combination of letters--one that has never been tried in 33 years of Duncan misspellings. This was a PR of sorts for me. I was renamed, reborn, cast into a new mold; I was now 'Dahnkan Larkin.' Some group of state trooper new cadets were here to run the race. They marched in formation up to the registration table and their platoon leader desperately tried to give them oddball drill commands such that their registration would appear as a one crisp, martial performance. They were neophyte State Troopers acting as if they were Pickett's men forming ranks to walk across vast fields into the teeth of thundering cannon on a hot July day a long time ago. How odd. I haven't come close to a marching in formation in a while and so I took it all in as a casual observer becoming instantly critical. Having marched in Clinton's Inaugural Parade and having spent probably 1/3 of my college years either practicing drill or parading for dictators or withered, insignificant men, I consider myself proficient in the ins and outs of marching. I still know how to form a platoon, dress their ranks, and get them from point A to point B. In fact, I used to march Josie around the house. She liked it for about as long as I did--one day. As I watched them, I thought: "Man, look at this guy, he's out of step! That whole fucking rank is hosed; what a damn disgrace. Holy shit, you call that a dress-right-dress? Your elbow...you call that a 45-degree angle? What was that command you gave? No such command exists. Von Steuben didn't write that one. Try again." Their ranks contained mostly men with shaved heads and nervous glances; they stood at attention and gave the race director "yes ma'ams" and "no ma'ams" as they crisply executed their signatures--one hand signing, the other still in the cupped position of attention at their sides. Their bodies formed perfect 90-degree angles as they signed. A squared plus B squared equals fucking neophyte state trooper's C squared; their feet, clad in the same State-issue running shoes, were wedged together and themselves formed smaller 45-degree angles. What for? The platoon reformed--with erroneous commands--and marched off into the distance to go warm up in unison and to run in unison. I guess it's more rites of passage for unsuspecting idealists. We all sauntered over to the start and some guy from some charity gave some speech while we all held our hands together and looked down not really paying much attention because about 1000 buckets of water were being dumped on us. The same crackling bullhorn from the other day announced the same start from the same cone. No one went out at any semblance of a pace and so I immediately broke ranks and shot forward into the lead. The same policeman on the same motorcycle led me along. His cycle had a tall, thin pole in the back and a flashing siren sat on top of it. It reminded me of a boat light--the kind you see flashing in harbors; I was being led out sea again. The policeman would flick his siren every once in a while to remind no one on the streets that a race that no one cares about in the middle of a driving rainstorm in some park was going on. 5:15 opening mile with the 2nd half into a wall of rain and wind--across bridges and paths, skipping over puddles, hopping over slick metal grates. My T4s have very little traction and so it was more ballet than running at first. 10:36 mile 2. There was no one behind me. My tired feet crashed through the puddles now, sending walls of water up over sidewalks where no one walked. The course was a figure 8 so the cop and myself just turned and moved--turn, move, turn, move--speed up, turn, jump, speed up, turn.... The finish was anticlimactic; it was a slow slog following the boat back to the harbor. Once into the chute, the race director tore my number off and her only helper yelled out my finishing time. I was handed a banana and I sat in my truck while I waited for the bauble festival. A man with short hair came up to me and congratulated me, "Good job man! Hey, are you in the Army?" I looked down and noticed that I was wearing my olive drab Army shirt from a long time and a lifetime ago. I connected the dots, "Yeah. A long time ago. ..a really, really long time ago." He's in the National Guard; he quizzed me on my life and this and that and then offered me a parting comment: "You know you should think about getting back in. We could use you in the Guard." I'm usually a shy guy that avoids eye contact--especially after a race. But this time, I looked a stranger dead in the eye, "I'm not interested. Thanks." "Are you sure? You could run on our National Guard team!" Dead in the eyes again, "I'm not interested. Thanks." I was thrown a rescue line--the bauble festival was kicking off. I got my gewgaw: a small medal--and then respectfully waited for the awards ceremony to end before I got the hell out of there. ----------------------------- Epilogue. Something as verbose as this about pretty much nothing deserves an epilogue. I hope this is better than reading about someone winning a non-race and all his quirky idiocy. On the other side of the racing results today, over there, in the dusty part of the bookshelf, bolstering up the happy joggers and the swish-swish walkers, is a woman that deserves mention. Go back to the results and stop reading the #1 or the #2, or #3 spot. Take your damn mouse and scroll to the bottom. Go to #58. Becky is at every one of these races; she is 87 years old. When she arrived at the finish, everyone stopped what they were doing. Cadet Trooper quickly formed his ragtag Confederate Army and did probably one thing that a platoon of marching people is good for these days--he formed an honor guard. Becky--every bit of her aged frame, every tendon, every sinew--courage and determination. She was Karnazes turned upside down; she was demonstrated humility; she was raw strength and a reminder that yes, we will age, but we will never, ever lose our spirit. She gave power to the last and she took power away from us, the selfish first. The rain fell and the guard marched along. Becky crossed the line and threw her arms up into the air--probably the same arms that have been thrown a thousand times in dead last place across thousands of finish lines--probably the same happy arms that raised a bouquet at her wedding. Yes, probably even the same sad arms that were raised, questioning skyward, on the casket of a husband or a son. Becky moved all of us into silence. Perhaps the race wasn't wasted. Perhaps, like many races or events in my life, there was a purpose to watch the humility of the last break the tape before the fleeting vanity of the first.