1. At the Start
It was dark. It was cold. The runners waited until the very last minute to put their warm gear in their bags, but even then they had on ratty, cotton, long-sleeved shirts and caps that they fully intended to jettison after the race was underway.
That’s always seemed so wasteful to me, but this year I wore one, too. Although the fair and industrious Trudy was at my side until the starting gun went off, the low 40s are cold enough that I wanted something warm for the first few miles.
In the event, I jettisoned it in a pile of other thrown-aside garb somewhere just after mile 1.
2. GPS Malfunction
There’s a GPS watch on my wrist when I work out these days. It’s relatively new, and it has changed the way I run, giving me confidence to speed up or back off at the right times. It shows elapsed time, elapsed distance. Most importantly, it shows my minutes per mile pace.
This is not new technology for runners. But for this Luddite it is, and although it was difficult to part with the cash for such a luxury, I confess that provides an astounding sense of understanding and control over my running. So it was with some anticipation that I planned to use the watch to manage my pace and to ensure that I ran negative splits.
It was not to be.
From the beginning, something went wrong with the watch. The elapsed distance never registered, showing instead 0.00 mi long into the race. And the pace appeared to get stuck after a while, not changing in spite of obvious changes in how fast (or slow) I was going.
At mile five, nothing except elapsed time was updating anymore. So at mile six, where the fair and industrious Trudy was on the outside of a turn in her tan hat smiling and waving and jumping up and down, I handed her my hat and my watch. Better to be rid of the thing and concentrate on running.
3. Running Down Duval
Concentrating on running doesn’t really work well for me. I end up going too fast when I should be going slower. And I end up going slow when I should be going fast. Without the watch, today was no exception.
At mile seven I passed Bejil, who was shooting for a final race time faster than me. But I felt great, and the route was sloping downhill, so I just went with it.
But somewhere around mile eleven, after the turn from 45th Street onto Duval Street, as the mostly-downhill route did a brief uphill climb, I walked for a few minutes, and Bejil passed me.
“Looking great,” she said, patting me on the shoulder.
“I thought you’d be coming by,” I said, trying to smile.
And then at the bottom of Duval where the course cuts thru campus, I let myself walk again.
“David!” I heard behind me. “Only a mile to go!”
“Hi Elizabeth,” I said, holding out a hand to low-five her.
By the time I started running a few minutes later, they were both far ahead of me.
4. Upon Reflection
I introduce myself as a back of the pack runner when I talk to runners. It wasn’t always like that, and maybe it won’t always be. But it’s that way now, and that’s just fine.
Today’s run was no exception. My pace was slow, but it was within one second of my target. And that’s really just fine.
I ran 11:31 minutes per mile and finished somewhere around 2:31. 195 out of 219 male runners in my age category.
Back of the back but fine with it.
