Out of my control

Certain things are within a runner's control. You train hard, disciplining yourself to run even on days when you don't want to lace up the shoes. You eat well. Before a race you sleep as much as you can. You wash the laundry so that you won't have to wear that rancid pair of shorts in which you ran 7 miles in 92 degree heat on Wednesday.

Other things are not at all within the runner's control. That little old lady in the Buick who cuts in front of you? Let it go. Do the math. Her car weighs 1500 pounds. You weigh... well, a lot less, even if you did eat three Krispy Kreme donuts at the faculty meeting yesterday morning.

Ahem.

The weather is one of those things out of the runner's control. So when I awoke Saturday morning brimming with hope for a 19-minute 5k and stepped outside to find air so think I need a pocket knife to pry my way across the threshold, there was nothing to do but race anyway.

How muggy was it? We didn't run five kilometers so much as we waded five kilometers. My finishing time, 19:51, was a huge disappointment, especially after running a 19:13 just two weeks earlier. But I finished in third place overall. That's how muggy it was. Everyone was slow. The whole race was run in instant replay, with John Madden drawing lines all over the course and inanimate objects suspended in mid-air as little children looked on with perpetual, unchanging boredom engraved on their little faces.

So, the nineteen minute five kay lives to fight another day. And I keep chasing.