ndanger.organism

Last night at 6:45 pm I was at Finnegan’s Wake for Heather’s birthday. Then we watched the Pirates lose 8-4 and Foreigner careen through a mediocre set. I got home around 11 pm and made some late night pasta in preparation for The Great Race.

I was asleep by midnight.

At about 1:45 pm I got to hear an argument outside. I didn’t catch the details, but Allie was mad at Pam because Pam wanted to call Dominick to get a ride. But according to Allie he just wants to fuck her and isn’t even taking care of their 6 year old. Allie said that If Jamie ever did that to her she wouldn’t stand for it. Pam just wanted to know where her phone was. She was also mad because Allie wasn’t listening to her. I think they both made reasonable arguments, I just wish they had made them quieter, or somewhere else.

For the record, Allie stated several times that she wasn’t drunk.

At 6:30 am I woke to my alarm and the sound of rain.

I had planned to eat eggs but realized that might be a bad running breakfast since running is so much harder on your stomach than biking. Some googling turned up recommendations to stick to simple carbs. To reinforce the point, the search also turned up information on Running Trots. I’ve heard of people pulling over in the woods during cross-country meets but didn’t know it was common enough to merit a name. Scared potentially shitless, I ate a little left over cold pasta and the Snickers nutrition bar (really, I couldn’t make that up) that came with my registration packet.

After pinning my # & attaching my timing chip, I got on my rain bike and headed downtown to catch the bus.

The line started at 3rd & Stanwix and wrapped up past the PPG fountain. It was a wet chilly wait for the bus, a comfortably heated bus ride, then a chillier wait at the start. To be fair, some of the chills at the start was probably pre-race jitters.

At the start I ran into Will, who worked a checkpoint with Louisa during the Pittsburgh-Roubaix and his friend Carolyn(?) who I met once at a Bike Pittsburgh fundraiser. She was an actual runner and looked the part. Will was wearing a stained white cotton T-shirt, guerrilla style.

While listening to droning opening ceremonies I looked around and saw Neil, partner to Boca Chica and big cheese at my CSA waving at me. I waved back.

We waited in the rain another 10 minutes while someone said something unintelligible over a megaphone. The racers would occasionally boo or shout “start the race”–a much clearer message. Eventually there was a gun shot and we all shuffled forward to the timing pad and then started running.

Like any large amateaur sporting event, the first 10 minutes was a cluster of almost running over slower people. Then it thinned out a bit and I settled into a rhythm.

My splits were around 7 minutes/mile, faster than my normal pace but I figured it was sustainable given that the course was mostly downhill.

One of the slight uphills was on Boulevard of the Allies right before town. I started to feel a little bad but grabbed some water and was fine.

Then it was mile 6 and we were turning the corner into Point State Park. In true “I actually used to be a sprinter” fashion I sped up for the last 200 feet, shaving at least .1 seconds.

I came in with a wall clock time of a little less than 42 minutes. They’ve since posted the results: my chip time is 40:56, which I’m pretty happy with. My “I’ll be disappointed if I run slower than this” was 50 minutes (5 min/km), my realistic goal was 42-45 minutes and my dream time was under 40. 40:56 is 6:35.4 splits. It puts me 256/6961 overall, 238/3860 males and 32/503 for my gender & age division.

For comparison the fastest male was 30:35, the fastest female was 35:59.

After drinking ice water and eating two orange slices & a banana I walked to my bike and rode back to the southside. I ran into Jonah outside of Yo Rita (his employer) then went back to my apartment (which is a convienent 50 feet from Yo Rita).

I changed into dry clothes and finished my left over pasta & both of the recovery drinks from the registration packet. Then shower and finally a slice of Pizza Sola before a half an hour nap.

Then I woke up and pooped. Twice. But at least it wasn’t while running.