45th overall, Broad Street 10 Mile Run. 53:57(chip), 53:59(gun). 5:23 average miles. Aided course (net drop around 170 feet). 10 mile PR improvement by 2 minutes and 21 seconds. Bear in mind, this course always runs fast, is a significant drop, and is point-to-point with only 2 turns, so lets put the hubris back in the bottle for now. Everyone runs fast on it. That's a fact, Jack. ------------------------------- 2 miles warmup, 10 miles race, 5 miles cooldown after the race in some haphazard fashion. 17 miles. 100 miles for the week ---------------------- Race rundown. 5:00 wakeup after a Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence dream involving Bowie and Bowie's song: The Width of a Circle combined with a really mean Japanese prisoner camp commandant. 6:00 meetup. 7:00 subway to the start--arm and arm with a million people smelling of either Ben Gay, BO, or alcohol. The alcohol part was the guy who wandered onto the train wearing the raiment of the horny 20-something man: Gap club shirt, Gap blue jeans with almost-bellbottom flare, and black track shoes with the squared toes. The gel in his hair had given up and left his head--by way of his greasy hand--either after the 5th shot of Jaeger or the 10th rejection from the tired girl with the gay roommate. 8:00 on the track stands in North Philly. A million people doing warmups kick up a cloud of dust; a Kenyan swims upstream and runs warmups going counter-clockwise. 8:15: Get the hell out of the track stands and make way to the start. A million people try to thread through a 10-foot wide gate; a thousand people bitch about everything; a hundred people stand in the way and do nothing but talk to friends on the other side of the gate. 8:25: Prancing Philly Track Club ponies and prancing Bryn Mawr ponies--striders that I'm supposed to do. Everyone looking the part and prancing around like immaculate racehorses. 8:30. The National Anthem that seems more and more to just become a thing to be over with. The starting gun goes off and some Kenyans jump the gun and run back quickly to make it all honest. Mile 1. 5:14. Insane downhill. A million people that don't belong and go anaerobic IMMEDIATELY. Mile 2-3. Just clipping out 5:20s and enjoying things. Anaerobic Middys put the brakes on and high-tail it back to the corral 10 folks. Some guy's dogtags chink-chink back and forth which grates me for some reason and I promptly leave the scene just to avoid the noise. Mile 4: A black man on the side of the road yells at the top of his lungs: "AFRICAN-AMERICANS ARE THE MOST UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. I CAN'T GET A JOB BECAUSE I AM AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN.....then again.....but distant now since I'm gone......AFRICAN-AMERICANS ARE THE MOST...." Mile 5: An eclectic mix of female, Muslim, African-American volunteers wearing hijabs, hand out cups of water while African-American men immaculately dressed in 3 piece suits and fedoras stroll down the street on their way to church. Mile 6. I quickly pass Kevin, owner of the Cobra Kai dojo and I feel a sense of closure; the guy never responded to my three emails and when I bought shoes from him, his handshake: dead fish, my credit card: center fucking stage. Later dude. I know, how sophomoric and letsrun-ish it is to act this way....with my little grudges and my immature and false cast of pompous villains and humble heroes. So be it. Mile 7: Around City Hall and the Disney statue of William Penn atop the Disney castle. Mile 8: I'm with the #2 female and she's letting out bursts of vocalized pain. I tell her to relax and give her a couple 'almost there's but she looks at me all-elite-athlete'ish (I got my Amby 'Chuck's Steakhouse' 2-504 tee shirt on, remember); she looks at me like I'm an intruding ass--which I am-- so I just leave her be: quickly. Mile 9: Reel in here and reel in there. I pass a few folks. Downhill. Mile 10: End, while barely squeaking out under 54. Overall, a great race. However, this race is always insanely fast, so I'm not walking around with dreams of 5:35 opening miles at VCM. I am confident and feel great. The race was enjoyable and relaxed--the miles came and went. My form never broke; I could carry on conversations and don't feel that it was anaerobic. It pushes me towards risking opening miles of 5:43-5:45 at VCM. Most importantly, it validates that my routine--my fucked up lack of science and anti-textbook gobbledygook--is working. It validates--to some very small degree--my flimsy soapbox shouts to the running engineers and the guys who quote running scripture, as if each moment in a run is vital, as if the pluses, minus, dates, and quotes from dead men who care not about you, are more important than just getting your ass out there and running in a simplistic fashion using but a few principles. ---------------------- Reading the Cobra Kai comments and trying to triangulate them with previously stated Skirack comments into some perceived bias of mine against local running stores ain't gonna work. Nope. I'm well aware of the value of local running stores, and I got no beef with them: I support them where I can. I got a ride today from a runner on this store's team and drank some beers (that he graciously provided as well as brownies/chips etc) with him, his team, and the manager of the store (see previous day's posting about Penn Relays and meeting the Providence College assistant coach). You see, some people get it and the others are either elite snobs with pedigreed sponsorship requirements or inept capitalists. ------------------------------- Postscripps. My niece's (attending Scripps College now, ahem!) and her boyfriend's jazz funk band. Good shit, man. Good post race music well worth listening to...peace to my Spokane Symphony-playing, Gonzaga University-teaching homie musician sista--Erin. -------------------------------- On the plate for next week: Week 8 May - 14 May: Objective--speed Mileage--90 Speed: 2 sessions, 1 hill session Long run: maybe 1 more long run, but no MP stuff.