The rain held off, barely.
Got myself up and ready and biked down to West Potomac Park to check in and get my race shirt and number (555).
The field where the tents were set up was pretty muddy from the rain the previous day and that morning. Folks were jumping around the larger puddles and trying not to step in the smaller ones by accident. Check-in was pretty painless, got my shirt and went back over to the bike to change shoes.
Just before the race started I spotted a friend from the tri club who was running with a friend of hers. Started chatting and just ran along with them for most of the race. They set a good pace (31:50 to finish, just under a 10 minute mile average), and it was fun to run with someone else and talk. I suspect I’d have run faster, but not had quite such a fun time, had I been running alone in the crowd. We did pick up the pace in the last 500 meters or so (the tri club women smoked us there – her friend and I just picked up a little and let her zip on ahead).
Simple course, an out and back. Mayor-elect Fenty was there running as well, and they got him up to say a few good words about the organization sponsoring the event, S.O.M.E. Bonus that the race fee was a donation, so tax deductible.
Post-race I hung out enough to cheer a bit more, and grab some water before changing shoes and heading home. As I pulled up to the building I started to feel the rain coming down again – just made it in time. Was a great start to a nice holiday.
I killed Firefox 2.0 from the iBook this morning. I had already beeen annoyed that I couldn’t close all the windows by hitting control-W as I could under 1.5 and earlier (it would close the last tab, but leave the window open with a blank tab), and that I couldn’t close the tabs by hitting the little ‘x’ button in the upper right corner any more (they put the x on each individual tab, which made them moving targets), but when it wouldn’t let me hold down the trackpad button and get the little function menu, that was the last straw. Thank you for your efforts, but you’re no longer desired. Glad I saved the installation file for 1.5.0.2. Blech.
Up early this morning to go run a turkey trot 5k run. Got to bed by 9:30, and was out like a light, so did get a good eight hours of sleep (for the first time since the weekend). I suspect a nap will be in order as well, but we’ll cross that bed when we get to it. No feasting plans today; I feel no desire to attempt to overeat.
And I’m definitely not making another tofurkey (haven’t tried an unturkey yet). As I put it to a friend of mine yesterday, because they pump it full of chemicals to make it taste better, your shit stinks like tofurkey for the next day and a half or so, and I really don’t need to be reminded of the meal for that long or in that way. Besides, I’m vegan because I don’t want to eat meat, so the idea of a big ole fake meat centerpiece to a meal is, well, kind of tacky to me.
Looks like the predicted rain is holding off this morning, which is good news for those of us running the race this morning.