Subtitle:  I hate losing.

8.2 Miles
1:01:39 (7:31)
Low Tide Strides

I was supposed to wake up at 4:40 this morning to get my booty out the door to head to San Diego for the Coronado Low Tide Ride & Stride.

Whoops.  I woke up at 5:02 thanks to some super strange dreams. I flew out the door pretty much forgetting most of what I needed but had the essentials:  shoes, clothes (no nekked running today) and a check to pay.

This race is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while – it’s running the length of the Silver Strand from just north of the border at Imperial Beach to Sunset Park in Coronado.  Parts of the beach are never open due to being part of the military base (which they kindly open for the race) and the need for a SUPER low tide to provide a firm, but bouncy running surface.

If you remember, I’m recovering from my groin injury.  And I’ve pretty much not run 8 miles in…oh…say a month.  The longest I’ve done is 6, slow interrupted miles two weeks ago.  I had very little expectations going into this 8.2 mile race except to finish.  I convinced myself that I didn’t care how things went as long as I ran close to 8 minute miles.

Getting prepped for the race. Bikers take off 10 minutes before the runners

Ha.

Rah ha ha ha ha haha.

Toeing the line

Some of the participants were a little crabby at the line.

I forgot one really important thing:  I HATE LOSING.

I started out running a 7:15 – whoops.

Around mile 2 Hank and I (my new running BFF) started running together and talked about how long the race felt and how we didn’t really have goals – except we did.  Around mile 5.5 I started really struggling and told Hank to go on.

Did I mention Hank is about 30 years my senior.   Spectacular way to feel super unawesome.

I took 1 mile to recover a bit (probably slowing down closer to 8 min/mile) then saw the finish line – which is a total optical illusion.  Since you’re running down a singular stretch of beach you see the finish line for about….oh 2 miles.

There were two women ahead of me (White Tankop Girl and Black Tanktop Woman), so with what I thought was the right amount of time to pass them I cranked it up to high gear.  Except that the finish line was much further away than I anticipated.

Whoops.

I kept ahead of BTW, but WTG gave me a run for my money with 100 yard left.

Did I mention I hate losing.

The two of us ridiculously sprinted to the finish.  Everyone was watching and I wasn’t going to let her beat me.

She got 9th place, I got 8th.

1:01:39. 8th in my division-  I hate this large division, since I was pretty much competing against a group of college runners.  As much as I may have the sense of humor of a teenage boy, my body is not the same as it was over a decade ago.  Whoops.

Post-race lounging

Overall – a pretty competitive race for such a small crowd (several hundred runners) but AMAZING views.  There were shells, sand dollars, crabs, dolphins and a well-organized crew.  They had everything down from the shuttle buses to food afterward.  I was impressed.

What to do? What to do?

On the way home from the big SD I remembered I had to hit up the Carlsbad outlet mall to grab some underwear at the Gap Outlet (priorities).

Anywho…I had a difficult decision to make.  I smell disgusting and am rocking my running clothes and compression sleeves.  Do I go in wearing my race bib so people realize that I am not normally this rancid (at least most of the time) or does that make me look like a freaky weirdo.

I took it off and opted to go with the smelly freak option and made minimal eye contact with people around me.

I’m really glad I have a lot of work to do this afternoon/evening to get ahead of the week so I have a great excuse to just ice and hang.

Any fun races this weekend? 
Would you wear your bib in or just go all smelly style on a post-race errand?