Race: Run Your Hangover Off 5 Miler
Location: Woburn, MA
Goal Time: 32:30
Actual Time: 33:32
It's a tradition in Japan to write poetry for New Years'. So I present:
5 Tough Miles: a Haibun
The cold stings like ice knives upon my naked legs. Breathing like a walrus in a flack jacket I attempt to pretend to follow the conversation Neil is holding. And with a little first mile group I go toward the inevitable failure of the race.
Oh, it's downhill and
I run like Hermes; but, it
cannot last this way.
Rollers Neil promised begin as mile two commences. But a hill too steep for such a nomenclature awaits. My first mile group - Andy, Megan and Neil fly away like eagles late for appointments on a mountainside aerie. (Greg only steadily opens up his gap on me).
Hills are not rollers;
Indeed, like Everestt or Fuji
they appear to me.
Third mile is but a desperate heave. Through the suburban streets I weave. Each lawn is a mini-treeless tundra sleeping below a New Year's blanket of snow.
Hilly roads delight
passing icebergian white;
fourteen minutes left(?)
Momentarily I forgot, the hills of travail the want of trails. Here upon Horne Pond I once rode, lost among the memories and streets of long ago. There's a beautiful trail that wraps the pond in easy jaunt. But to the shores we do not go - another hill instead.
Here at mile four
Many feet above the shore;
don't want to run no more -
800 meters before the end, I was promised but one hill left to tend. I tried to save myself on the rise so that down I could surprise Aharon and pass him just in time to cross that finish line.
I didn't.
Finally that is done
New Years' race and nothing done
Now, I'll get a beer.
SRR Shoutouts -
Too many to count.
