27. Daniel Island Twilight Series 2008, Part 3

Time for the third race in the Daniel Island Series. I was concerned about this race much more than the others. I had been entertaining thoughts of beating my Personal Record at each race, since the first two went so well. However, the first race had rain and the second wasn’t as hot as I had feared. Things like that tend to help a guy out.

The recent temperatures added to my worries. The days seemed to grow warmer and less forgiving as we entered August. With that in mind, I resolved to give up on my record-breaking ideas. I would do well, but the circumstances wouldn’t be on my side anymore. Rather than place arbitrary goals, I would just enjoy the race.

That’s nonsense, of course. I wanted to break my record again.

Birthday Follies

Did I mention that I had a birthday recently? Well, I did. I’m 35 years old now. The day before my big day, my friend Meaghan asked if I wanted to get a beer. I accepted because it’s been forever. She took me to O’Malley’s Pub. She said I could get a decent Black & Tan there.

God Almighty, she was right. It was wonderful. So was the first shot she ordered. And the second. I’m told that the one after that was a bit of a disappointment. The shots after that are somewhat difficult for me to review at this time.

Half-way through this mess I declared us officially drunk. She wasn’t catching the bus home, and I sure as hell wasn’t driving her home. I live downtown and I have a couch. She walked home with me. After a brief coma which can only loosely be referred to as “sleep”, I drove her home so that she could shower, and then drove her back downtown so she could get to work. (Yeah, she actually had to work the next day… ouch.)

After that, I pretty much lost the daylight hours of my birthday to an especially unforgiving hangover. Sometime in the afternoon I found this photo in my camera. Neither of us remembers posing for it, and we have no idea who took the picture. On the bright side, at least we didn’t do anything that could get our names into the newspaper. We just got drunk and happy, with no police involvement which either of us can recall.

Before the Race

Did I mention that I lost Tuesday? I haven’t felt quite right all week. I’ve even been wondering if I was catching a cold, although the sniffles seem to have cleared up. Without going into great detail, I still felt a little hungover by Thursday’s race. Even with a convenient, light and cooling rain to help me out, I doubted that I would best my Personal Record.

I took a couple of photos before stashing the camera. The rain was light, but I couldn’t be sure at the time that it would stay that way. I spotted Joanie and Donna, who introduced me to a few more of their friends. I had seen one of them before at other events, and I’ll admit that I got a charge out of my continued integration into Charleston’s running community. We talked lightly until Mike called us to the Starting Line.

Oh, the Consequences…

I set a decent pace. At the one-mile marker I noted two things: I had run a seven-and-a-half minute mile, and I kind of felt like throwing up. Things settled down after that, but they didn’t get better. Around the end of the second mile, the outside of my left hip started flaring up for some crazy reason. Oh, wait… I know why. I didn’t stretch much before the race. I’ve never had a problem with my hip before, but stretching is usually what people blame for this stuff, right?

I considered stopping… but no. I came here to race and I was going to finish it. If I make the problem worse then I’ll just limp for a day or so. No biggie. A race is a race. I would have plenty of time later to sit down in a comfy chair and take ibuprofen.

In the end, I finished at 23:21. It’s not a Personal Best, but it’s a pretty decent time. In fact, in my younger days I used to think that was pretty fast.

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