Sometimes the Wind Rights the Ship

Just after work today, I was thinking of calling my friend Jason to play tennis, when my phone rings. It was Jason and he asked me if I wanted to go run a 5K with him today. With the slacking I've been doing lately, I thought it was a bad idea to do an official one. However, I was planning on running anyway, and Jason and I have been trying to do a race together for a year now with no success. So I said "yes."

I drove out there to meet him and register, we walked around a bit, and caught up with each other. One of his friends met us there for it as well, and we all walked up toward the start.

They both took off like a shot, as I was fumbling with my mp3 player at the start. I never caught up. I hit the first mile where I was at a 9:45/mile pace. The second mile was murder. It was almost all uphill, and we all admitted we each almost stopped to walk in that 2nd mile. The last leg was a pretty steep downhill, though, and I just let my weight do the work. I really booked it down the big hill, thinking it ended at the bottom, and there was another turn. I was dead, but seeing that clock and the finish really pushes you at the end.

When all was said and done, I knocked another 1:05 off my 5K time for a 32:17 time total. I don't know how it happened, with my recent laziness, but I am newly inspired. Maybe I needed the quasi-break mentally, or physically to refresh and jump back in, anyway. I definitely needed this random unplanned race with my friend to get me enthused again.

Afterward, our friend Pat came downtown, and we had a few beers downtown to celebrate finishing the race. We were all incredibly pleased with our times. Jason and his friend both ate an entire pizza each. I stuck with just beer, no sense is undoing what I just did.

Told you I had some new resolve going...