2nd overall in the First Annual Valley Forge Izod Shirt n' Tin Whistle 5 Miler. 27:07/5:26 miles*. 1 mile warmup, 5 mile race, 2 mile cooldown, bauble bonanza, then a 10 miler out in VF/Betzwood afterwards --easy pace. 18 miles in some shape or form of multiple runs. ---------------------------------- 125 miles completed this week (paren. = how I did them in the day): M-24 (17,7) T -20 (12,8) W-16 (16) T-15 (15) F-18 (13,5) S-14 (9,5) S-18 (1,5,2,10) All objectives completed this week: Week 17 April - 23 April: Objective--speed with mileage Mileage--120 Speed: 2 sessions Long run: none

Another secret objective partially completed too: no beer in 3 days, but Captain and Coke on my b-day kinda nullified it just a tad. Am I turning into a righteous teetotaler like some Flanders okely-dokely folk? Fuck no, the bar's still open--wide open. I'm just moving over to red wine. Lots of beer is too fattening for us endomorphic marathoners; red wine has them free-radical killing phosphates. ---------------------------------- Somehow it was either the metallic sound of the golf ball being hit--interrupting and then silencing the wonderful songbirds cheerily singing out in my back deck--or catching the pink petal of a blooming tree as it blew from my windshield through my open window, into my open hand--that has forced me to write something about this race. I'll be frank--I'm growing tired, at least for the moment, of trying to write-up every race like its some sort of sacramental rite.

This race wasn't a gut check or a desperate struggle to secure second. Rather, it was me letting go of Dave Welsh--the eventual winner and low 2:30 marathoner in his own right--on the hill at mile 1.5.

Other than Dave, there really wasn't anyone there; no PTC, no Bryn Mawr; no Kenyans. It was 1000 of us ugly white folk at the starting line. A few had the canyons and the defined ridges for solei and the fancy shirts, but other than that, it was a bust.

I was chastised up front by members of my company for not wearing the company shirt. My admission wasn't fucking paid by the company so I'm not bloody well wearing the fucking company shirt. I instead wore my trademark elite singlet which is my gray, ergonomically-designed PT top from the 82nd Airborne Division. It's faded and it's got gothic script telling the Walter Middy bad asses in the matching run this and run that (TM) singlets and shorts that I don't fucking care.

I didn't hear any tin whistles other than my now-favorite pre-race song; I didn't see any car sucking or rocking; in fact, the start was pretty quiet. The race director---always an aging, dedicated runner, always harried and flustered, always talking on a crackling 2 way radio--started us about ten minutes late.

I snuck in behind the leaders and let them go. Steve, now the second person that I've met through blogging, was with me as well at the first mile. The clock was all messed up at the first mile and the kids were calling out 4:55...4:56...4:57!.... I looked down and saw the real time was 5:14. That's why you wear a watch in a race.

I felt incredibly strong--so strong that I tucked in behind Dave and another kid and told them that the splits were wrong with 0 shortness of breath. We hit a hill at mile 1.5 and Dave took off. The kid put it in reverse, huffing and puffing, making that same dead-kid sound that always makes a report around mile 1.5 of a 5 mile race.

I started to bake on the hill. It was large and unforgiving and I knew that I didn't have it in the legs to pursue Dave. I know Dave somewhat and I knew that he'd kick the shit out of this poop for a field. So away he went.

Two mile 10:42.

After that it was more watching a police car in the distance and out of place driving on a bike path. No one was in striking distance to the rear, so I just maintained pace and just kicked it in for 2nd. Ta-da! Jazz Hands!!!

Overall, a good race for me. I am happy. Naturally, my time wasn't a PR, but this course was no PR course. Naturally, I died as I always die and then hold on, but I died on 100+ mile legs and I maintained like I've never maintained. I am extremely confident that I'd kick the shit out of a flat 5 mile course right now--low 26s easy. I'm also pleased--perhaps more so than with my race--with how I felt after the race. I ran an easy but hilly 10 miles afterwards and could have done more. I've got the leg strength and I"m peaking in that regard. Time to lay in some death MP stuff and some Brad Hudson-Renato Canova hills along with a pinch of more speed and I'm ready to go kick some Skirack ass.

I do want to close with a quote. This one is a real gem. It outkicks Mills' banal, overly simplistic, and pathetically jejune: "Every passion has its destiny." garbage. It's from the beginning of Van der Post's book The Prisoner and the Bomb. It's the brilliant wrapping paper that covers over a year's worth of my blogging and life; it's the exclamation point to all my desperate emotion and my politically incorrect, seemingly offensive and swish-swish/pig-ear-disparaging psychobabble; it's what keeps me running hard:

"The depth of darkness into which you can descend, and still live, is an exact measure, I believe, of the height to which you can aspire to reach."

-----------------------------------

I'm happy to report that I finally secured my copy of the Quiet American today. There was no gauntlet of ugly Americans to pass through. Somehow the higher-than-normal IQs of the bookstore folks hid horse mouth-Coulter's book probably in the myth section and the EMS guys probably wanted to put up some Himalayan expedition climbing gear instead of Karno in order to draw in a crowd of Land Rover-driving gentry to purchase for their eventual summit attempt up treacherous Mount Backyard.

Regarding which Graham Greene novel to read first, I am siding with The Power and the Glory. For some sick reason, I want to read about how horrible my church can be and has been more than my country. I'm just about done with Kurtz--he's passed on an Marlow needs to shut the fuck up and be done with the expedition.

-----------------------------------

Next week is supposed to be sloth and pancakes (no speed/no MP/70 miles). In other words, recovery. I don't know if I'm going to do this. I think deep down I could do another 100 mile week. I will for sure run less miles, but I might try to hit like 80 in singles or max singles at 6:45-6:50 type pace with some progression runs. I will also do a hill workout. I ate it on the hills today--hard.

------------------------------------

Hypothetical Cattle Question, Real Observation.

If a minivan with a fading and half-torn "Support the Troops" bumpersticker cuts off another car at an intersection, and the driver of the minivan flips off the other car who's driver just got back from his second tour in the SHIT, who's supporting whom?

-------------------------------------

*Hi Josh. I caught your reference to my blog today. Nice race.