A New Year's Haibun: Shamrock's NY5 (1/1/13)

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.