Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Solaire Salmon Run 5K

5/5/2007

Ken took me to Bend for the weekend and when I saw there was a 5k race that Saturday, I wanted to enter. A flat course along the river with mountain views -- what could be better?

We arrived in town on Friday night and checked into McMenamins hotel. It was a nice afternoon so we meandered up to the Grateful Dead bar and drank cocktails next to the fire. Followed by pints, more pints, and then dinner & pitchers. We ended the night with a dehydrating dip in the hot soaking pool.

So, back to the race... I was feeling a little less than stellar, there was ice on the ground, and I didn't have a running partner to put happy thoughts into my head. But I put on my headphones and decided to sprint and see how long it took me to burn out. I hit mile 1 around 08:30, which is really fast for me. I never saw mile 2 (hmmm, I'm starting to see a pattern...), but I did see a bunch of people crossing the river at the wrong footbridge. I remember thinking, "whatever jackass has to cheat on a 3.1 mile run, is a real tool".

Pretty soon I was running by myself wondering what the heck happened to mile 2. After awhile I knew that I was close to the finish line, but my time didn't make any sense for how fast I felt I was going. I finished in over 35 minutes and I was puzzled that my pace had slowed down so much after the 1st mile.Two explanations: 1) all of those people "cheating" were oncourse and I was the jackass going the wrong way, and/or 2) cocktails/beer/wine the night before a race is no good.

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