Two Fer...a Race Report

I have read the smackdown/battle/lover's quarrel between Viper and Vanilla with great amusement. I have held off on commenting and it seems to have paid off. While their accomplishments are cute, I don't seem to recall them running 2 races this weekend.

On the same day.

Within 2 hours of one another.



That's right, fellow runners. A race report 2-fer:


I started out with Nancy's 8 on the 8th Virtual Olympic Race. It was a beautiful morning for it. Normally, I don't like to try things out for the first time at a race, but I strapped on a fuel belt. One bottle for this trip and that seemed to be enough. I guess there are virtual volunteers manning the water stations, too. I headed north on the road, which I'm sure is USATF sanctioned, right Nancy? It was quite the international experience, too. Along the race, I saw people of Indian, African, and Latin descent. I'm sure there were some Kenyans, but they probably finished before I did. And don't even get me started on the Dutch. I finished in decent enough shape, but I still had to do more. A victory lap, if you will. 2 miles to soak in the cheering and the worshiping. It was a sight to behold.

Official Time - 1:05:16

My next race was a 5K. I purposefully ran my 8 mile race on the same track as the 5K. How smart am I?



Only 30 entrants (inaugural race), so it seemed to be promising. I've never finished in 30th place in any race, so I was pretty sure this would be my best finish, provided I didn't DNF (double negative). My hopes were up until I find out that there were some heavy hitters in the race:

• The current record-holder of the Omaha Corporate Cup Run and the Omaha marathon.
• 3 members of Team Nebraska (elite team).
  
• Do they sign up for every damn race possible just to win it? Really guys? You're that competitive? You're like Kramer beating kids in karate.
  
• Both of our school's cross-country coaches.

The race was fine. I took it pretty easy. Training for the Virtual Olympics took everything out of me and I let that be my excuse. I snuck in comments like, "Boy was it nice here earlier this morning." and "Hey, I saw that guy when I was out here earlier. I think it was around mile 7." and "I just ran 8+2 miles this morning. You're a slacker."

Subtle as a runaway train.

So there you have it, folks. I sincerely hope that those 13.1 milers had a good time (pun intended) running their little ONE race. I must now try to go and fit my ego through the door.