Maybe I was waiting until it was actually St. Patrick's Day to write about my race. (Or maybe I just haven't had the time.)

The morning started out in the worst possible way - I had forgot about the time change. I had gone diving the night before, late, and in my preparing for going to bed (showering, looking at some of my pictures) I completely forgot to change the clocks ahead. All I remember is waking up and seeing the clock say that it was seven something. The first words out of my mouth were "Oh shit!"

My plan was to take a shower (yes, even before a race,) grab some stuff for Kristy (whom I was seeing that morning after the race,) a change of clothes (since rain was predicted,) some coffee from Starbucks (every race up until this point has featured coffee beforehand,) and still have enough time to drop by my work and grab my hat and rain coat (which I had forgotten at work.)

This race was a little different than my others that I've run - you park your car at the finish line, and then you are bussed to the starting line, so you had to be down by the football and baseball stadiums in time to catch the bus up to Seattle Center. Plus I still had to have enough time to pick up my registration information.

Long story short - I barely made it in time. Caught the second to last wave of buses heading north, and managed to find where I needed to pick up my registration information at. Since April didn't come with me like we had planned (she worked until nearly midnight on Friday, and all day Saturday, plus the weather was pretty crappy) I had to somehow carry our t-shirts with me. My plan was to roll them up and store them in my water belt that I had brought. I didn't need water on this short of a run, but thought that the shirts would fit where the water bottles normally lived. No such luck - I couldn't get the shirts to roll up tight enough to fit in there, so now I was stuck wearing a water belt with no water, and having to carry two t-shirts in my hands for the entire run.

The run itself is a 3.38 mile (5.44 km) run that goes from Seattle Center, down the viaduct, to the stadium area. Not quite a 5k, not quite a 3.5 mile run either. I had no idea what sort of time I was going to have. But I did learn from my experiences at the Jingle Bell Run to register in the faster (all runner) wave so I wouldn't get stuck in the runner/walker/stroller/clueless wave.

Supposedly there were 15,000 registered runner/walkers, but official number are impossible to come by. Especially since the weather was bad. So bad actually, that I was the only one from my running group of friends to actually do the run. My reasoning was that I was a scuba diver - a little rain isn't going to stop me. The rain didn't - in fact, the rain wasn't even a factor until the end of the race - probably the last 1000 feet or so is all that it rained. (That sounds funny - the rain didn't start until the last 1000 feet of the course, and continued for the remainder of the morning - plus it was windy which made it a tad cold for me walking back to my car - all sweaty, rained on, and walking into the wind at every turn it seemed.)

Overall, the run was decent. This was the first race that I ran, where I actually had to stop and walk for about a minute or so. When I came out of the tunnel, I had a horrible side stitch. I blame it on the viaduct - when I ran here in July (Torchlight 8k) I had a horrible side stitch for the entire run. Not sure what it is about the viaduct . . .

Even with all the people, and the short walking break, I still had a pretty good time overall (not too bad for my first race in four months.)

Total time: 30:32
Pace: 9:01

Looking at my Garmin, excluding the first 1.12 miles, and the fifty-eight second walk break, I had a sub 9-minute mile pace, which does please me. I'm not in as good of running shape as I was in September when I did my 10k (at least I don't feel like I am, so it's nice to see that sub 9-minute mile pace again.

And a picture to close . . .


Note the t-shirts in my hands.

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After the race, I headed up to Kristy's friend Julie's house for brunch. The group of us - Kristy, Janise, Julie and Nate, were all planning on running, but the weather turned them all away, and somehow during our e-mails the week before, it seems that I had invited everyone over to Julie's for brunch. The kicker is - Julie hadn't been checking her e-mail the Saturday beforehand, and had no idea that we were all coming over. Whoops. But it worked out - they let me take a nice warm shower and we all got plenty of food - home made blueberry pancakes, mixed fruit, sausage (veggie for me and Janise) and mimosas and coffee.

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Looking at the calendar - my next race will probably be my half-marathon. Scary.

Instead of sleeping, I decided to hunt through all of the Torchlight pictures to find one of me. There had to be one right? Well, there just so happens to be one - but it's a horrible picture of me. At least I found one!

Torchlight 2006 While we (the runners) were waiting for the walkers, we were asked if a group picture could be taken for a website called Top Seattle - here's the results: (I'm in the middle.)

The results page is finally working again.

While they aren't showing the actual chip time, just the official gun time, my time is listed as 47:25.9. If you consider the fact that it took me a good amount of precious seconds (maybe even minutes) to get the starting line after the gun went off, I am very pleased with my time.

A few pictures from yesterday's Torchlight Run. The wife only had her camera phone with her. I can't wait to see the event pictures!

	Getting ready at Seahwhawk Stadium Qwest Field.
	I was told to look mean - the consensus is that I pulled that look off. That's my skull bandana - to keep in the pirate theme of the Seafair events.
	The wife took this right as the 8k runners started their race.

It's done. I survived and feel good.

Will post more later.

It's been awhile since I've done a real update here, and no, this won't exactly be a real update either.

Lots has been going on - wife's birthday mystery tour, diving, running, work, new dog (yes, a new dog,) IPA, Animal Planet, even some new shoes.

Oh, and I can't forget a new shirt - which is a new style of sorts for me. Something I probably wouldn't have worn a year ago, but wore it today.

See:

Too bad my head is chopped off a little bit.	Not exactly sure what I was looking at or where - guess I was trying to not look at the camera directly.

I only received one good compliment today at work from Kathy. Not that I was looking for compliments. Wasn't exactly sure if this was me, but it seems to have worked.

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Something I haven't mentioned in awhile is the racing/running - tomorrow will be my second "career" race - the Torchlight Run in downtown Seattle. An 8k that goes from the Stadium District up to Seattle Center and back again. I'm very excited about this one. (The wife and supposedly chimein will be walking the 5k course.)

If any of you Seattle people aren't doing anything - be sure to come down to the Torchlight Parade and cheer me on! I'll be the one with the black shorts, silver shirt and if all goes well, the skully and crossbones bandana.