Race day report

Well, today was race day.  I am going to give a full and detailed report of my run.  But first, I'm gonna need to talk about what happened after the run.  Most of our running group went out for lunch afterwards.  I have spent this week eating much healthier and I actually lost about 4 pounds.  In the long run, this is going to be great.  Not sure if it sapped some of my energy for the run, but that is an excuse for another story.  The point of what I'm trying to get across now is that I ate way less food this week.  Then today, I ran a half marathon and went out to lunch.  In my mind, the eating healthy and the 13.1 miles meant that I could eat whatever the hell I wanted today.  In the olden days, people would go fairly long periods without eating much.  Then finally, they would catch a bison or an elk or maybe a huge tuna and they would eat the heck out of all that.  This is where the words feast or famine came from.  People were hungry and they were famished and then they caught a warthog and really ate it.  The stories of this always made me hungry.  Stories of roasting a warthog over an open fire on a spit.  Reading of our forefathers and mothers chewing on a greasy leg of an albatross made me really hungry.    Anyway, if we can flash forward to today, I ordered a pierogi casserole.  I think the recipe for this was as follows.  Take 100 pierogies.  Add copious amounts of cheese and onions.  Stuff them in a casserole dish and serve to the masses.  I think what the recipe was calling the masses, were my love handles.  Let's just say they were happy.  My love handles are saddle bag-like remoras of skin and lard.  In times of strife they feed off the potato chips and gravy drippings that don't make it into my mouth.  I think they call this a symbiotic relationship.  I don't know because I haven't taken science since 1956.  All I know is that my love handles need me to drop food to them and I need them for this particular post.  In all actuality, I would like to get rid of them but due to the pierogie pie thing, that won't happen for awhile.  I'm going to try and upload a picture of the casserole, but if you can just imagine a throw pillow of cheese, potatoes and pierogie, that is what you have.

Now for the race.  I felt pretty good for the start of it.  Then for the next 13.1 miles I felt like shit.  When I crossed the line and stopped, I felt good again. 

I have felt like I have been overly sappy lately, but here is the reality of today.  I saw people do incredible things.  Lots of people getting pr's.  People busting their butts to get across the finish line.  People doing whatever it takes to get over the line.  People helping other people to get to the line or get medical attention.  People running that should not have been running.  Gutting it out.  Friends coming out to cheer us on.  The moments of silence for Boston before the race brought tears to many people's eyes.  When I say silence.  I mean there was not a sound.  It was really something.  You could just feel the emotions the crowd was feeling.  I have incredible running friends.  This is one of the few times that I didn't care that much about my time.  Not that I didn't try, I was spent, but just finishing was enough.  To sum it all up, it was one of those days that will leave an impression on me.

In conclusion, it was a good day.  The bad news for my love handles is that their remora days are over. Their days of wine and pierogie pie is done.  I'm on a mission to do some serious stuff.