Top Pot 5K

The 4th Annual Top Pot 5K is finished. This is my third year in a row running it. I improved modestly from last year. I ran a 7:47-mile pace. Not my best effort; I could have pushed a little harder. But all in all, considering that I'm dealing with a work week commute that clocks in at over three hours each day and has caused a reduction in the number of days I run, I'll take it.

But overall I'm left with the impression that I should be doing better. In the corral at the starting line looking at other runners -- guys in their late 60s with full flowing gray beards lining up in the area for those who plan to complete the race in 5-6 minute mile pace; one guy my age, somewhere in his 40s, saying to his buddy of the same age, "If you want to make the top ten in our age bracket you better run a sub-6 split"; women passing me by at the 1-mile marker easy as you please when it felt like I was sprinting like David Rudisha when he shattered 800 m record in the finals at the London Olympics last summer -- it seems to me that I'm not doing enough. I know what I have to do. RW tells you how every month. But I'm stuck in the same place. I was 27th out of 138 runners in the Male 40-49 division. The top quintile, yes, but just barely.

I've figured out some basic things in the last three-and-a-half years. First, above all, avoid injury. Injuries are catastrophic and set you back months. Next, be consistent -- with diet and exercise. Finally, push yourself now and then during your workout week.

I had intended to jog the five miles home afterwards, but I meekly opted for the #48 bus instead. On the ride home I listened to Jimi Hendrix's Hippie manifesto, "If 6 Was 9," from Axis: Bold as Love (1967):

Nobody know what I'm talking about
I've got my own life to live
I'm the one that's gonna have to die
When it's time for me to die
So let me live my life the way I want to.

Yes, that's right, isn't it? A pretty succinct description of Existentialism.