Salem 5k

Today was New England Day for me.  I did a 5k in Salem, MA, then went to Maine and enjoyed Lobster Festival.  One of the events was crate racing, which is where you have to run across lobster crates without falling into the water.  There were 50 crates linked together; if the racer got through the 50, then s/he would take a short break and do as many more as possible.  The winning crate racer ran 701. 

My race was less entertaining (and less brackish) than this.  The conditions were okay: not too hot, but rather humid.  Despite that, my time was a full 4 minutes faster than the last Florida Death Race.  Today definitely wasn't a personal record, but I was pleased with the result.

It was a nice race.  We went around Salem with some parts by the shore, so you could see the boats.  Also, the people there were very classy, I thought.  They applauded the slower runners when they came in near the end as well as the last people to finish.  I thought that this was great because I've been last in a race before and it is not a fun feeling.  In fact, I had a bad race earlier this year where I thought I was last and I wanted to give up -- I didn't, and as it turned out, I wasn't even close to last either.  So it's great to see others encouraging runners who are clearly pushing themselves, even if their results aren't as fast.

Near the end of the race, I got neck-in-neck with an older guy running.  I wasn't really concerned about this and was almost willing to let him overtake me because he had a concentrated glare in his eyes.  However, I did overtake him so I wasn't about to slow down and let him pass.  Later, I saw that he won the medal for the fastest time in his age group.  This gives me hope: if I can just keep running at exactly the same pace for the next 30 or so years, maybe someday I'll win an age group too!

But seriously, congratulations to that guy and thanks for a great race, Salem organizers!