Race Report: WABC Father’s Day Fight Against Prostate Cancer 5M

It’s so typical to read about some bad behavior or bad experience on this blog. So it is amazing that for once there’s just all good news to report. Welcome to the twilight zone.

This morning was the annual Father’s Day race in Central Park, a 5-miler, and what a race it was. Nearly 5000 runners on the shorter loop, in beautiful, but warm weather.

Before heading out for the 8:30 start time, we checked out WABC/Channel 7’s coverage on the TV. They’re one of the sponsors, and they always carry the race live, which is nice since you never really see much coverage around here for much less than the marathon. Anyway, their weekend weatherman Jeff Smith was giving the weather live from the check-in near Tavern-On-The-Green, and the forecast looked good. So later on, with a half hour to get there, we jog down the east drive to baggage check, and then get suddenly snagged by some guy. After a double-take, we realize it’s the same weatherman! Before we knew it, we’re waiting to go on, live, on Channel 7, with Jeff. He needed a local ‘runner’ to help him in the post-forecast transition, and your crazy running pal gets enlisted. So we wait and wait to go on, and then we’re on, and Jeff’s interviewing us about our projected time. Previously-unknown stores of charm emerge, and we’re suddenly singing like a canary about how often we’ve run this race and about our anticipated finish time of 34 minutes. Eyes widen, because as he put it, ‘that sounds fast’, and before you know it, we’re sent on our way, after a nice ass-kissing ‘thank you to Channel 7’ from yours truly.

What a nice start, and the race hasn’t even begun yet. But…. one thought occurs: We just told the entire tri-state area that we’re going to finish this race in 34 minutes, and Jeff gave our full name, and damn, now we have to finish the goddamn race in 34 minutes! Shit! So we jog over to baggage check knowing full well that the left shin pain and the right ankle pain we’ve been feeling over the last couple of days better stay the hell away.

Now the pressure is on, and the pre-race announcements and National Anthem singing is dragging. Well, the gun goes off, and the first mile is the usual slow one, with too big a crowd, and the typical runners (with hands pushing, and outstretched arms) cutting you off. But it ends up being a 6:44 at the first mile marker, and it… just gets better. Negative splits start, and despite an increasingly warm last mile with hills and full sun, it’s just great. We ran at a ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ pace; it wasn’t an all-or-nothing effort of nausea, definitely not a hurlfest. No Heave Prefontaine performance today, thank you. We knew it was a good day when a spectator notified a young lady running alongside us that she was the 7th female.

And we finally get to the finish, and the watch says 33 flat. Shit, Part 2! Not a PR, but within a minute of that, and besides, we didn’t train or plan for a PR today anyway (comma, bitches). Later, the official chip time listed was 32:58, no complaints here. 304th out of 4993. A good day, it was a likewise good placement for Satan A. Chilles, sarcastic runner to the stars.

Well, when it falls into place, it falls into place, and we all know some days are better than others. There will definitely be bad race days and good race days ahead, but here’s a nice reminder that good days are very much possible.

P.S. In a strangely prescient move, we set the TiVo to record the live race coverage before we set out this morning. Which meant we later saw ourselves on recorded TV. Had we known about the upcoming on-air interview we would’ve spent a little more time fixing the sweaty ‘hairdon’t’, but whatcha gonna do…