FIGJAM

Yesterday, we had some friends come visit us, and one of them is an avid golfer (and really, really good, too). He told us that he had recently heard Phil Mickelson's nickname on the tour -- FIGJAM. It's an acronym for [censored for parental eyes] "Fudge, I'm good. Just ask me".

Now, that being a great story in and of itself, it seems that it would not make a monumental blog post. So, why bring it up? Well... I'll get to that in a second.

Yesterday was a scheduled 7 mile long run. However, as mentioned before, the OES Run for the Pies 5K was scheduled for last night, so I did a not-so-quick four miler in the morning out on the beach. Turns out that at the time I went out (roughly 7AM), the tide was in and there wasn't a lot of room for running on the beach, and the sand was pretty loose. It wasn't my best effort, but hey, it was a "long" run (even though it was the same length as my morning run on Wednesday). And besides, I had some more to take care of that night.

We then spent the rest of the day eating badly (I had corned beef hash and eggs with hash browns and lots of toast for breakfast), and going to the beach, getting some sun, swimming in the ocean, and basically, wearing ourselves out. We came back to the house at about 5:00 and were all exhausted, and I don't know about the others, but my legs were pretty weak. So we showered, got ready, and headed out to the race.

And it was hot. And parking was nowhere to be found. Finally, we found a good spot, got our timing chips (well, Kathleen and I did... Lana got a personal chip from the Princess Half Marathon, so she was trying it out in this race). First was the Mizuno 5K Championship, where the qualifications were 17:00 for men, and 20:00 for women. And holy crap, are these guys fast. Most of the entrants seemed to be local, but the overall winner was Ryan Woods from Boone, NC -- in a time of 14:40. A 4:43 pace. Wow. It was an impressive race.

After that, it was time for the open race. This is set up so that more average schlubs like us can get medals -- the really fast guys run in the championship race before, and in some age groups, they give medals away 15 deep. Unfortunately, the start for the open race was the same as the finish for the championship race, so once everyone finished the first race, the almost 600 people running the second race had to run into the start (and push around so we could all fit behind the mats).

Oh, and did I forget to mention just how hot it was? It had to still be over 80.

But then the cannon shot, and we were off. The race started by running up Hogan St., which very quickly turned into a fairly steep incline away from the river. Now, since my legs were hurting, my first thought was "This is not good". But then I got slightly clearer thinking, and realized... "If we're going uphill here... we'll be going downhill for the finish!" Yeah, that kept me going for a lot of the race.

The race itself was pretty uneventful. The course was an out-and-back, but with a couple turns in them... an interesting notion. I spent the first part of the race running even with Kathleen, and just a few dozen yards behind Paul. At some point, I passed Kathleen, and kept running, focusing on Paul every now and then... I've never really had a chance to run a race with Paul, but I know he's finished the Gate River Run 15K in 1:40, and that's one of my goals, so I really wanted to keep up with him.

And we ran. And it stayed like that for a while.

We got to the first water stop (at some point after the mile split, but I never saw the sign for the mile), and this is when I realized that at some point in the last mile, Kathleen had passed me. How did I know this? Because the water stops were in the wrong places, were too crowded, and were too small. And we couldn't tell they were there, even as we were coming up onto them. And with the heat, they were necessary. So, as we were running, Kathleen had to run in front of me to get to the water (not obnoxiously so... just enough to surprise me that she had gotten in front of me). And Paul was still there, just ahead of me.

Then we got to the first turnaround, and I noticed that I was actually catching up to Paul. He was right there! Of course, after I turned around, I noticed that Kathleen was right there. It was a tight race. And it really was a race. At least for me. Because it wasn't long after that I actually passed Paul. And then I didn't have anyone to chase... but I had people chasing me. Which is still a mighty good incentive for me.

Yeah, I'm a little competitive.

But we were on our way back. And I passed the two mile mark, and got to the second water stop. Again, it was in the wrong place, but at this point, it wasn't that crowded, and I actually got a great nab on the cup and was able to take a drink, and dump some water over me without really even breaking stride.

And then we were nearing the end. We were on the last long straight stretch before turning for the finish, and we finally got a good breeze. It was still ridiculously hot. And for much of the course, we were getting no breeze, running on blacktop, and crowded with a few hundred of our closest friends. But now, it was feeling good... sweet breeze, and getting toward the end. We ran around the building, and into the home stretch. And the hill. That one from the beginning that hurt so bad at the beginning was suddenly the greatest thing I have ever seen.

And I was flying.

I kicked as fast as I possibly could, and crossed the line. And damn near collapsed.

Kathleen crossed the line 17 seconds behind me.

Paul was 58 seconds behind me.

And me? Oh, I did it in 25:35. A new PR. By 1:13.

FIGJAM.