Never What You Expect

If you and hoped, even slightly, that you would see a race recap from the WMU Campus Classic 5K, stop reading right now. Stop. Seriously. Because you are not going to get it.

Why?!? Simple, I didn’t run it. WHAT??? Honestly, I didn’t run it. Did two weeks of post marathon slothfulness catch up? Did your plantar fasciitis finally become unbearable? Nope. And nope (but the latter still hurts badly). But, since you have persisted this far, I’ll tell you the story of why.

On Saturday evening I jumped onto the race webpage around 10pm to get directions to the race. When the page loaded I got that terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It appears the WMU Campus Classic 5K was run on Saturday morning.

So, your captain of the ‘running in circles’ team failed to realize his gland finale for the 2009 racing season was a Saturday morning race, and not a Sunday morning race. And that is why there will be no WMU Campus Classic 5K race report. I missed the friggen race.

Fortunately, I live in a 5K crazed region of the country. So I took a quick dip into the vast seas of the internet and found another 5K—this one scheduled to run on Sunday. And, in case you still care, my alternate 5K race report is below.

My alternate 5K was a small race, with less than 100 people participating. Now, I had hoped to trail some fast college kids to pull me through to a 17:58. But given this field, it no longer seemed like an option. Oh, well, the burden has always been on me to run as fast as I can.

I get to the race early, register, and warm up. As I’m toeing the line I’m also fidgeting with my iPod. The gun impersonates a clap of lightning, and the race is off. Immediately five people blast out in front of me. And nobody else is around me. It is only at mile one (no clocks at this race) that I glance down at my Garmin and notice that in the commotion of the official start I failed to hit ‘start.’ It simply read (0:00:00). FAIL Spike, FAIL.

Well, I’m just going to have to run this one on feel. And right now I feel like I want to die. We are running along a river and all I want to do is jump in and begin my long overdue swimming lessons. I don’t, I just keep running. And pretty soon mile two is denoted by chalk writing on the ground. By this time, I’ve pretty much lost sight of the two runners I had before me. I’m wondering how fast they are going, and therefore how fast I’m going. But what I mostly think about is how the Pop-Tarts I consumed this morning are not happy with me. At this point I feel like I’ve settled into cruising speed, and that a sub 18:00 (or a PR) is out of the question.

As I near mile 3 I’m wondering why the Pop-Tarts are still so angry. When the finish line is in sight I buckle down and refuse to look at the clock. I’m just trying to get it over with.

As I cross I notice the clock reads 18:06.

18:06. Hummm…a new PR. And I’m quite happy about it. Yeah, I missed my goal. And yeah, had I known I was so close I could have pushed harder in mile two and the start of mile three, and made up those few seconds. But I won my ag, and would have won my ag at the WMU 5K as well. And bling is bling.

All things considering, I’m pretty excited. In a two-week span I BQed, destroyed 22 Pop-Tarts, ate Taco Bell 6 times, eviscerated a deer with my car, rocked McDonalds 3 times, loved BW3s once, ate pizza 9 times (including the night before my 5K and for lunch the day before Chicago), consumed more Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups than could be considered safe (and that’s not even taking into account all the other candy I enjoyed), drank Mt. Dew for 12 of the 14 days, made a rather non-specific “Zombie Survival Plan” (just meet me halfway), ate 7 doughnuts, and ran three times totaling 13 miles.


I love running.


Although I’m not going to disappear during my time away from serious running, I want to thank all of you for your kind words and support this year. Please know I’ve enjoyed sharing your ups, downs, aches and pains, triumphs, and stories.