There comes a time in every man's life where he must decide 5K or 10K and that is exactly the cross road I came to this past sunday.
I guess I should start from the beginning as to what drove this alcoholic-cigarette chimney to attempt a 10k; a feat not normally attempted by someone like myself.
I was sitting in my office one day daydreaming about the big house I'm thinking to buy and what kind of flowers I will have at my wedding and all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I have everything that I could possibly hope for except for one thing.
In my 23 years of living, I have accomplished a lot; surviving an emotional abusive family, cleaning myself off of addictive narcotics, getting myself into the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization and establishing a family of four that I am extremely proud off are only just a few things on a list of hundreds, if not thousands. Mentally going over this list, I realize, everything that I have accomplished are either mental accomplishments or materialistic ones and not a single one has to do wtih my body. Over the years, I have done nothing to strengthen and prolong the use of the only vehicle for my soul. For 23 years, I have continually subject my body to crap ranging from fatty foods to tar-filled smoke.
Don't get me wrong, I have no intentions of quitting my nasty cigarette habits or curbing my wine consumption. I merely did it to boost my own ego knowing that I have everything AND I have proven to myself and the world that I have accomplished something a smoker/alcoholic should never have.
So with this ego egging me on, I started to train for the 10K about two months prior to the race. I have never been committed to anything in my life. I would do something until I was bored with it (usually within a week or so) and then I would quit. Take my diets (yes, plural) for example. I would go on this crazy, stupid, malnutricious diet to loose this spare tire I call my stomach, but then after a week, or at the first sight of a nice piece of fried chicken, whichever comes first, my commitment to my diet went right out the window and within 5 minutes you can catch me gnawing away at a piece of Popeye's chicken thigh, rubbing my spare tire in satisfaction.
But somehow running was different. Running took my mind off of everyday stress (my stomach and my fatness, f
or example) and gave my energy to battle evil Satan's minions I call my coworkers. So as you can see, running gave me a sense of purpose - fighting fat and destroying evil in this world.
So after 2 months of training...okay, let me interject because I just chuckled to myself. By training, I mean running and lifting on the weekdays and then drinking myself stupid and smoking myself retarded on the weekends, so basically, everything I did during the week cancelled out with my partying on the weekends. So if 1 - 1 = 0, then my effort was in vane. But nonetheless, the last two weeks before the race, I cleaned myself up (partying only once) and rested.
Sunday came quickly and at 6:30am I was up and getting ready for my race. At 7:30, we (Me, Amanda and Jonathan) left the house and went to the race site to pick up m
y race packet and number (275). At 8:30, I was off.
I started off the race going at an incredible speed; let's just say when I hit the one mile marker, I clocked in at 6:45 (yes, that's 6 minutes and 45 seconds). That's way fast and I realized that there's no way in the fiery pits of hell that I can maintain my speed and when I dropped my pace to what I figured as about 9 min/mile, my calves started to cramp a little. At 2.6 miles, my calves crapped out and I had no choice bu
t to walk. Because the Rockville Run Fest has 5K runners and 10K runners, so at one point, the race course splits into two; one for the 5K runners and one for the 10K. You do not understand the dilemma I was in. I was so exhausted that I just wanted to go home and sleep. "my poor legs, how unfair it is for me to put you two through so much; we should go home," is what I kept saying to myself. For 0.3 mile I contemplated quitting and just hop onto the 5K line, but for some odd reason, I decided against it and kept on running, or rather walking as I was still in pain. I rested and out of no where, at around 3.5 miles, God granted me a second wind and I ran the rest of the way, going at a decent speed. Upon crossing the finish line, I clocked in at 56:37; I had finished the race, and what's more? I did it all under an hour; I was elated!
Now my goal for my next 10K is under 50 mins. Go me, I am so awesome!
