Friday, September 21, 2007

To race or not to race?

Tomorrow is the inaugural Dewey Decimal Dash 5K (clever, huh?), which is a fundraiser for the Sturgis Public Library. Bottom line is, we are going to Sturgis because we've already told the kids that they can run the kids' race and my wife is planning on walking the 2 mile walk. What is still up in the air is my status for tomorrow. I can't seem to convice myself either way whether I should run the 5K or not. So, for my own personal benefit, here are the pros and cons:

Cons
  • 5Ks hurt. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It's 3.1 miles of pure misery. I could say that I'll take it easy and enjoy myself, but I know damn well that that's a bald faced lie. As soon as the gun sounds, I'll be off chasing somebody who I don't think should beat me. This will lead to me running the first mile way too fast and, consequently, the last mile will hurt like hell and I'll swear that I'm never running a 5K again. Won't be the first time, won't be the last.
  • I hurt. I've had this lingering pain in my groin since......well hell, I don't even know. It just comes and goes, seemingly without rhyme or reason and it's here now. I was convinced for awhile that I had myself a bonafide hernia, but I'm not so sure now. It's definitely in the groin area, but it's more like way up in the nether regions where my leg, groin and butt come together. I'd include a picture, but this isn't that sort of web page. It feels like something is being pinched and generally hurts for the first tenth of a mile or so when I run and then magically goes away.....until I cool down afterwards. Then it screams again. Any doctors out there?
  • The course. One of my burning ambitions is to run a sub-20 minute 5K and this course is not conducive to that. Why go through the pain and misery of a 5K with no real hope of getting a PR?
  • The weather. It's supposed to get up to 90 on Saturday and the race doesn't start until 5:15. I've run two other 5Ks in Sturgis. Both started in the evening and the temps were 85 for the first and 100 for the second. Apparently they'd rather face the heat than get their lazy butts out of bed in Sturgis.

Pros

  • It will likely be a small race, especially since we're in the middle of high school cross country season, which should limit the number of high school punks who can smoke me. It's likely that I'll place in the top 3 in my age group. It's also likely that I'll be the only one in my age group.
  • Free food afterwards. It's food and it's free, how can you go wrong?
  • I like to race. It lights a fire in my belly. It floats my boat. It warms the cockles of my heart. It gives me an excuse to drink beer and eat pizza.

So, the cons outweight the pros 4 to 3 but in all likelihood this was a pointless excercise because I'll probably just end up running the damn thing anyway....and then cussing myself out for it as I slog through an 18 miler on Sunday. Why can't I have a normal hobby?

1 comment:

jen said...

If it wasn't for the groin issue, I would defintely vote DO IT. Since only you know how seroius that injury is/could be, that's going to be your call.

So I'll call this a conditional: DO IT!!!

:)

How cool the whole family is involved. :) If you choose not to race the 5k, you should walk w/ your wife!! Have fun!