Mother of all Races 10K

I don’t know how to dress. The weather forecast is saying that it may be very cold, very warm, or somewhere in between. Furthermore, there may be rain, sleet, snow or bright sunshine. I opt for middle-of-the-road-ish attire: a black tech t-shirt, black shorts, black socks, and my union-jack Brooks Launch kicks. It works out rather well: I feel pretty comfortable during the protracted warmup, and early on in the race. It’s only in the later miles that I begin to feel warm. But by then I’ve got bigger issues.

Those bigger issues include Achilles pain and the fact that I am the world’s slowest runner, age be damned.

The start and finish are at Northwest High School. The first half of the race is on roads. We run through and beyond the quaint village of Canal Fulton. I maintain a slightly slower than eight-minute pace. I would have to do better to get to the finish in under fifty minutes. That has, for some reason, become a goal. (In a small voice, I remember when the goal was to get under thirty-eight.)

Much of the second half of the race is on the towpath. It’s pretty down this way, although of course, it is in my neck of the woods as well. I think that now is the time to pick that pace up. Fifty is still within reach, isn’t it?

It’s not. I slow down on the last hill, a mile from the finish. Not that I would have made it anyway. My time is 51 and change. That’s pretty darn stinky. And it doesn't bode well for next week's Cleveland Marathon.