Can you hear me now?

ORN: 5.55 miles in 1:00:03 on a pleasant but rainy 57° day. I wish the sun would come out and stay. Saturday it was sunny but cold; today, warm but rainy. Alas, such in spring in Louisville. BTW, this run puts me over 93 miles for March. w00t!

I hope you can read this because I am trying to type softly. Two people today have mentioned to me that I type loudly. People had done this before at work but never twice in one day. Within an hour of each other. It's hard not to type hard because I have a very clicky keyboard. And I guess I pound on the keys. I get intense when I write. I'm especially abusive toward my space bar, I'm noticing as I write this, and it is the clickiest of the keys. Frak. Aha! My other keyboard isn't so bad. That's it. I'm switching keyboards.

Aren't you glad you are reading this?

My post on Saturday regarding the Papa John's 10 Miler was pretty short, a far cry from a proper race report. But in all honesty, I didn't do much but run. Here, let me break down my morning for you. Little One woke me up 30 minutes before my alarm was to go off. I invited her to sleep in bed with momma, and I slinked off to her princess bed for another few winks before alarm-time. I should have known better. [that was foreshadowing, y'all]

My alarm goes off, and the way it's looking, I will be on-site 45 minutes to an hour before start time. This was intentional, because I wanted plenty of time to pee. Two weeks ago, at the Rodes City Run, I sloshed and suffered through the whole race because I was too short on time pre-race to stand in line for the porta-potty. Not fun. So even though I peed right before walking out the door, I wanted to leave myself plenty of time before the start. As I walked out, I noticed Little One was in the living room turning on PBS and not in bed with momma as I had hoped. This meant that I was going to have a bad day later on because Wifey likes to sleep in on Saturdays. [foreshadowing again]

Driving to the race, listening to 1 minute of NPR content for every 20 minutes of public radio fund drive banter. *sigh* Everything is fine and dandy on the interstate until I get near Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, which is near the start and contains the finish line. Southbound I-65 is a frakkin' parking lot near my exit. I'm in stop-go-traffic a full 45 minutes. My time-buffer was gone, and my bladder was full to bursting. As Murphy's Law would have it, there was a truck show going on at the nearby Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center so the suggested best place to park [according to the race's website] was packed full of big rigs and racers. But I was out of options. I had to park about a mile and a half away. I put my car in Park right at 8:30, start time. I strapped on Nike+ and DJ Nano, locked the door, stowed my key, and started running. I ran all the way to the starting line, which had a row of portable toilets nearby, with lines of irritable people waiting, even though the race had started 3 minutes ago. I impatiently waited, but I wasn't as psychotic as I usually am when I am running late. [I HATE being late. I'm a total nutcase about punctuality.] I mean, there were timing chips, so I wasn't really in any trouble. My chip time would start when I started and get an accurate, honest time at the end. No worries. I peed, finally, and took off running.

The course was pleasant and flat heading down Southern Parkway to Iroquois Park. In this neighborhood, there are decent, tightly-packed row houses and tree-lined lanes, part of Olmstead's parkway system around Louisville. Very lovely. After a couple miles, I entered the park and started huffing and puffing up hills. To be fair, the hills did have downward slopes too, but some of the up-slopes seemed endless. Of course, the park itself was lovely in the early morning sunlight. Some of the trees were starting to bud and flower, and there were tons of birds.

My strongest part of the race was when I was going up and down those hills. Before getting to the park, I was getting warmed up [it was cold despite the sun] and winding down from Lateness Anxiety™. At the end, I was faltering and feeling beaten by the hills. However, during the ascents and descents, I did very well. I felt strong. I attacked them, not like a berserker, but fearlessly with with steady earnestness if that makes any sense. On the descents, I let gravity do its thing. The park was my favorite part of the race.

After conquering the park, we ran back to the stadium the way we came, up Southern Parkway. After mile 7, I started feeling progressively worse. The longest and worst part of the whole race for me was the last mile as the course circled the stadium toward the gate we would enter to run the final stretch. This part is actually kind of cool. I entered the football field at one end, ran around the opposite end zone, and ran back to the finish line, making a big 'U'. There were spectators in the bleachers cheering. Race staff were taking down numbers and broadcasting them to the announcers who read names over the public address system. And the finish line was being televised on the big board. All very cool.

After the race, I really wanted my free slice of Papa John's pizza, but the post-race goodie tents were a mob scene. Panera Bread and Whole Foods, as they had in the previous two races, had their tents set up and passed out bagels and granola bars, respectively. Somebody else gave out sports drink. I grabbed all these and gobbled them down. But the pizza lines were insane, and my legs were rebelling.

Remember me mentioning that I struggled at the end of the race? I was hurting once the race was over. If I stopped, I started cramping. If I walked, I hurt. I stretched a little, but everything sucked less if I kept moving. And since I wasn't running anymore, I started getting cold because I was soaked through with sweat and it was still around 40°. I started walking back to the car.

Shivering, sore, miserable, and generally unhappy, I hobbled the mile and a half back to wherever the heck I left my car. In my hurry to get to the start, I didn't bother taking note of where I parked. I knew generally where I parked, but with all the tractor trailers [a.k.a. semis, lorries, Optimus Primes, etc.], I couldn't easily see my little Honda Civic from far off. Eventually, of course, I found it. I didn't even start crying!

Traffic getting out was nearly as bad as traffic getting in. And the NPR station was doing a fund drive. And Wifey was in a foul mood when I got home. And I had to forgo a nice, pleasant, hot bath and start helping to clean house because we had company coming. Consequently, the rest of the day, Sunday, and today, my feet and hips were really sore.

The Smithwick's, vodka & tonics, and ibuprofen I ingested over the course of the weekend helped considerably.

Enough complaining. Time to turn my attention to the Derby Festival Mini on April 26th!

1. Lucky Ball & Chain - They Might Be Giants
2. Rag And Bone - The White Stripes
3. Louie Louie - Black Flag
4. Road Movie to Berlin - They Might Be Giants
5. Remote Control - The Clash
6. Cool Confusion - The Clash
7. Memphis Exorcism - Squirrel Nut Zippers
8. Instinct Blues - The White Stripes
9. Rock And Roll - Led Zeppelin
10. Bullets, Bombs & Bigotry - KMFDM
11. Green - Descendents
12. Long About Midnight - Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
13. Mr. Trouble - The Toasters
14. You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) - The White Stripes
15. Salt Lane Shuffle - Clue J and His Blues Blasters
16. Death Trip - Iggy & the Stooges
17. I Hate Myself for Loving You - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
18. The Prince - Madness