Changes in Attitude.

Running was about the last thing I felt like doing when I got up Sunday morning about 5:30 after barely three hours sleep.  Any hope I had of running fast at the Rock-n-Roll Chicago 5k warm-up race went out the window when our plane home from Florida was delayed three hours because of storms.  When we finally got the kids settled down and went to bed, it was 2:30am.  I was exhausted, stiff from sitting on the airplane, and frazzled from screaming children.

But my wife had to work the race, and I committed to doing a live shot for channel 7 after the race.  So I sucked it up, threw on shorts and running shoes and forced myself out the door.  

I had been looking forward to the race.  It was on the Lakefront path starting at Montrose beach, one of my favorite areas to run.  And it was a Rock-n-Roll event, which always features music and fun. For this race, country singer Dan Evans, a recent finalist on 'The Biggest Loser' was playing.  He sounded surprisingly good. And he kept the weight off.

I was also planning on running with my friend Greg, who burned up the course last weekend at the North Shore half marathon, meeting his goal of breaking 1:30.   Fortunately, Greg said he'd had a rough night staying up with his newborn baby as well.   So we lowered our expectations as we met at the starting line, and took off hoping for the best.  

It was a struggle.  My watch switched into displaying a different mode shortly after the start, and there was no clock at the mile marker, so we were flying blind.  But based on the heavy breathing and burning in my lungs and legs, I felt like we were giving it a pretty good effort.  I didn't feel good, or strong, or fast, but at least it felt like a good effort.

We kept going, trying to keep the pace we had for what it was worth.  And as we neared the finish line we heard footsteps.  A runner behind us was starting to kick, and it sounded like we were his target.  So we summoned our remaining energy, and kicked to the finish ourselves.  We held him off, and crossed the line.  Looking at the clock, I was pretty bummed, but that didn't matter much.  I was ready to collapse.

We finished together, as you can see in the picture.  Our time was disappointing.  We averaged 6:35/mile, or about 10 seconds a mile slower than I was hoping for.  But that was in an ideal world.  And despite the near perfect weather, the previous night's activities made this far from an ideal condition to run in.

So I tried to gather myself quickly, and prepare for the live interview, where I was relying on John 'The Penguin' Bingham to do his usual bang-up job of talking about the race.  And that's pretty much what he did.  I did little more than point the microphone his direction.

I was just about to leave, hoping to get home for a nap, when they started announcing the winners on stage.  I paid little attention after the overall winners came forward.  But Greg heard some of the younger age group winners announced and urged me to stay.  He thought we had a chance to win.

I've always said that most age group awards really are only a reflection on who shows up on a given day at a given race.  I've run some pretty competitive races over the years where I've finished pretty far down in my age group.  

But on this day apparently not too many old guys showed up.  Greg was right.  We did win our age group.  And we got nice bags with the Rock-n-Roll Chicago logo on them.  It was the last thing I expected, but it change my outlook on the entire day.

So like I was saying, I was really excited to get up and race Sunday morning....

Hey it doesn't take much to get me excited!

See you on the roads.....

 

 

Comments

[Pete Beuscher]

Congrats. It's always nice to get an age group award. I also enjoyed your interview with John Bingham. Maybe one day I will follow his philosophy and get my money's worth out a race instead of trying to finish it fast without taking it all in!