Ollie 5-mile

Two races for the week. The first was on Labor Day: the Irish-American 5k. It was very, very low-key. I ran with a bunch of high school guys for the first mile and a half, then they died off and I surged ahead. Unfortunately, the cops manning the race must have gone to lunch because no one bothered to stop traffic at two of the intersections. So two red lights and a 5k came out to 18:44. The best part of that race was the presence of two gigantic inflatable bounce houses for the kids to play in: Bruce was thrilled.

The second race was a bigger deal: the USATF-NE Grand Prix 5-mile championship hosted by the Ollie Road Race. This is the one I was dreading. And I dreaded it right up until the start. Most of the time, I'm pretty excited before a race. On Saturday morning, I was nearly in a bad mood. Once the race got going, I eased into a groove. It was really hot and a bit windy, but there were lots of people to chase. I came out with a half-decent time - 30:39, for fifth place. And my team won! Now for the Tufts 10k...

This week was Scott's birthday! Bruce has been practicing "Happy Birthday" for weeks now. Scott started out his birthday by running experiments until 2:30 in the morning. Bruce and I let him sleep in, then made raisin french toast. That night we had a pumpkin chocolate cheesecake and checked out Scott's presents: an LCD monitor for the computer, biking gloves, power drill, and headphones.