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.

"Confusion"

I had to blow out the cobwebs this morning on the Lake Union Loop. My work commute is longer but the amount of walking I do each day is about a half-hour less. I am now a corporeal husk sitting on a train car. I've got the Top Pot Doughnut Dash 5K coming up at the end of the month. I have to be disciplined about my training this week. Then scale back next week in the lead up to the race. The Top Pot Doughnut Dash 5K is indeed a dash; it's pretty much a flat-out sprint around the oval of Green Lake.

As I was climbing Capitol Hill at the end of this morning's run listening to Fela's superjam from 1975, "Confusion, Pts. 1 & 2," I was hailed by a muscular young man wearing a tight Green Bay Packers jersey. He asked if I lived nearby. He smelled of alcohol, and he had dried pizza sauce or burrito juice smeared all over his face. I told him, yes, I lived on Capitol Hill. He asked if I had a cell phone charger; he said he was trying to call his friend who he expected was asleep in the Ben Lomond apartment building, the parking lot of which we were standing in. I told him I didn't have a cell phone charger but someone at Top Pot Doughnuts would. I asked if he wanted to walk with me. He said we could run. So I started to jog. He asked how far it was to Top Pot. I said two blocks over and one block up. As we jogged we talked about yesterday's hail storm, evidence of which was still visible on the streets, and Aaron Rodgers' Packers. I asked him if he liked the Seahawks. He said he didn't. I dropped him off at Top Pot. It was open but dark inside. There was one man with is little boy sitting at the front and someone working the cash register. I expected there to be more people. There usually are. The muscular young man wearing a tight Green Bay Packers jersey looked frightened as he approached the woman working the register. I hope she helped him.