A New Age Bracket

I turned 45 on Monday. Yep, 6/6/66. Now I'm in this 45-49 age bracket which is full of mid-life crisis-enduring speed demons intent on retaining/regaining their youth of 20 years ago *. Thankfully this is a passing phase and most men move on into acceptance by about age 73 or 74. And this cohort conveniently lies on the boundary where a fast race time equals an assured 'fountain of youth' return to a time when everything looked like a Prefontaine movie, while a plodding ass-strained limp through mile two of a community 5K fun run can be tossed away with a casual, "All these kids with their flashy smiles and bandanas!! I couldn't get a rhythm going and the damn music is melting my ears!"

Seattle's Prefontaine Building. Thanks for nothing Google!

I'll tell you what else has been melting some ears - the sound of me yelling "I'm rich!!" Generous relatives sent me $150 in Roadrunner Sports gift cards. I think they want me to run myself into the ground so I'll stop impregnating Maria. I perused merchandise obsessively online, then headed over yesterday to claim my looty. Within a few minutes of entering the store, I figured out that they do not carry nearly as much stuff in the store as they advertise online, and the employees are hopelessly tuned to the beginning runner. Samples of parlay (as overheard)....
"you have a slight pronation on the left that is causing you to push that foot further out as you run. It may result in strained running and injury. I recommend these pronation-reducing inserts" Hey Dr. Scholl, stop screwing around with people!  or check out this priceless bon mot "I've been running nearly three years so I decided to get a job here and eventually run in my first marathon"

My salesperson received free one on one coaching by yours truly: I helped her locate the Scape sunscreen, identify its purpose, and discern that there is no difference except there are two types of packaging. I also helped her understand that the lip balm is not a child-sized sunscreen container, but meant to be applied to the area that surrounds a persons bubble gum hole. She then showed me the two racks that hold visors. I patiently showed her that one rack holds nothing but full hats while the other is reserved for the visors. I didn't see the Asics visor that was advertised on the website, so I asked her, and she said that she was pretty sure Asics only makes shoes. I met up with Suzanne right then (she was buying winter close-out stuff) and the sales person wandered away, I'm sure she went to read Teen Beat or Twitter or some such crap. I found an RRS visor, some RRS shorts, and settled on the el cheapo Nathan 10 oz handheld. It was between that one and the Fuel Belt, and have you seen the Fuel Belt 10 oz? POS. So is the Nathan, but the gift cards were burning my ass and triggering all my purchase peptides. I also got 6 packs of Gu, some running socks, some Accelerade and went past the $150 mark without breathing hard. I had to put back the Salt Stick tabs because I was over my limit. Holy batshit running stuff is expensive.

So tomorrow morning is ARR Summer Series race #2 on what looks like a flat course as seen on satellite. My PR for a 5K is 27:30, but it was run at the FYTO 5K in January. There were several things wrong with that race:  Garmin only measured 3.03 miles, it was Directed and WON by Adam, my calf blew up in the last quarter mile, and Adam was the Director and WON the fucking race. So tomorrow I want to try for a sub 27:00 which is 8:41/mile. I'm going to try a warm up 3/4 mile pre-race, and also be a bit more awake than usual for the first mile (coffee and race atmosphere). I want to hold 8:50 for the first two miles and drop the hammer in mile three. I've prepped today by only eating hint-o-lime Tostidos( I would pay extra for Tostidos that were dripping with lime powder. Don't you just love that one chip in the bag that got stuck on the conveyor belt and was sprayed with lime chemical for 45 minutes? I want a whole bag of those!) and drinking expired Cytomax. I also pinned my race bib with only three pins a la Nitmos (2 diagonal and one smack in the middle, all three under the shirt ninja-style!!!), and I'll sleep in the park tonight a la Runlaur. If none of that works, then I'll claim my social security and refuse to vote for anything that doesn't directly benefit my senior living community.


* To be fair, it is also almost exclusively comprised of men and women who have been running most of their lives and have worked hard to get to this level. Almost all of the people out running at 6:30am in sanctioned races are serious runners.