Perfect Day

Maybe I shouldn't jinx myself calling this a perfect day since it's only about 3:30 in the afternoon, but so far, it's been real good. Seebo and I participated in the Pickle Run at Ridley Creek State Park in Delaware County. This was perhaps one of the sillier runs I've done - complete with pictures of David Hasselhoff, Ray Charles holding a pickle, and a guy dressed up as a giant pickle. Even The Monk was there - from a hot, humid, and hilly race we did last June.

We met my friend, Amy, and my dad at the race. Amy was a bit cranky when she arrived, but all that changed when she received a very pleasing race number (#77).... she has a thing about numbers. And... I was #14 - the sum of her digits. How cool is that? Anyway... I digress.... this run was different from other 5ks that I've done in that the wearing of watches was forbidden. The reason being this was a "Prediction Run" - where runners were asked to predict their finish time upon registration. Prizes were to be awarded to those runners who came closest to their predicted times.

I didn't give too much thought to my prediction. My fastest 5k to date was a bit over 24 minutes. Knowing that I'm not in the same shape I was this past fall, I decided to hedge my bets and predict a time of 26 minutes. The course was semi-hilly; nothing too insane, but definitely noticeable for someone like me who avoids hills at all costs. It was a chilly morning and I was aware of not being able to feel the toes on my left foot for the first mile. I felt like I was working hard, but it didn't really seem like I was running all that fast. I spotted Seebo as I headed toward the turn around. He had a comfortable lead and I was pretty sure that he'd go on to win the thing.... which, of course he did. I crossed the finish line in just under 25 minutes (24:56 - to be exact) and so was pleasantly surprised to have finished a minute ahead of my prediction. The only down side to that was I wouldn't be winning any pickle prediction prizes. Oh well.

After the race, we stood around and listened to the silliness as they handed out awards. I thought it was a little lame that Seebo didn't get any recognition for finishing first, but I guess this wasn't that kind of race. After that was said and done Seebo and I did another two miles. I had planned to do more than that, but wasn't really into it and decided that I'd tack on a few miles tomorrow to give me the mileage I want for the week. This may have been one of the first times I actually enjoyed running with Seebo - where I didn't feel any pressure to be fast and I knew we were only running a short distance. So, we ran out a mile, turned around and ran back. At the end of this second mile, I could tell that Seebo wanted to catch the woman who we had been slowly reeling in during that second mile. Even though the finish was a bit of an uphill, I did what I could to speed up and we did catch and pass her.

After monkeying around on the monkey bars for a bit, we left and headed into Media for a nice post-run lunch... then home again, home again jiggity, jig. A good day.