Charlottesville Half Race Recap: Cavalier Eternal

...I'm sitting in my bed. It's around 8pm. I'm getting the "man I have to work tomorrow" face going on. I'm getting that same old feeling that I get whenever I come back from Charlotte. The homesickness kicks in, but then the depression comes back. For a while I've gone back on athleticore and looked at my log and looked at days gone past. Some days I'm immediately transformed back to that day, because I know where I ran, how I was feeling, and what was going on. Other days I have no idea what I did that day. I keep thinking about how I left Charlotte. Eh. Is how I usually think about it. Were some people sad? Probably. Did I piss off some people? Probably. Did anyone really care that I left? Probably.

I was in my hotel room and I was thinking, what I was going to do when I finished the race and was on my way home. I guess I could call my parents, but that would be weird. Hey I just ran this race that you had no idea I was running. I could call my friends in DC. That would work, although you need to have actual individuals who are friends for this to happen, and I don't have any. I could call my friends who don't live in DC. I guess it could go like this, hey I ran this race that you didn't know about and didn't know I was training. I haven't talked to you in a while, I will be in Charlotte for about twenty four hours, so this is short notice but I probably won't see you. Yep sounds about right.

I left Friday for Charlottesville a little after 11am and got stung by severe traffic on I-95. It was unpleasant. So I do what I usually do on a Friday or Saturday night and have pretend conversations either with people I know and pretend to be them or I believe that I'm on a talk show talking about my life. I then got off the highway and went down the back roads to get to Charlottesville. As I got into the city, I started to think what does this remind me of, and then it hit me. Charlottesville was a southern version of Portland. I half expected someone to put a bird on my shirt and call it art.

The expo was kinda weak, I bought a gel (No more revolution against gels). I then had to find my hotel. I had read on the internet that it was hard to find. It was. My hotel was on campus (?) and was in the school of business (??) area. I got there and it was actually not a bad place to stay. It was expensive, but it served it's purpose. I then drove back to the campus to get something to eat.

Now UVA is what I would call a bro-ific campus. The best example of this was the guy wearing a buttoned up polo shirt that had a sweatshirt over it (with the sleeves rolled up) and over that a polo shirt. I texted my brother this and thought that if he was here he would have gotten in a fight nearly every second for starting something. I ate at a mellow mushroom. I did all the things you shouldn't do before a race. Ate greasy pizza, some greasy pretzels, and drank a lot of soda. Then I went to a corner market to buy some breakfast. A Special K bar and marathon bar was my mode of food. The clerk at the store started to talk about my shirt that I was wearing, I was wearing my Against Me! shirt. When I started to talk about I realized how long I had the shirt, over eight years. I almost made the remark of "Christ this shirt is old and so am I", but I didn't and left. I ended up watching two Law and Order episodes that I had seen roughly four or five times.

I woke up at 3:30. Realized I wanted to go to bed and slept in till 4. I ate my bars, something I have never done before and interruption to my routine. Oh well. I parked in a lot around 5:15 and meandered to the expo. It wasn't cold, but rather in the 40s. I did a warm up and chilled in the expo till about 6:15 and then made my way to the line. I saw Doug Campbell from Charlotte there. I asked him how the course was and he said hilly. I asked him if it was like a race in Charlotte and he said yeah. Ok works for me.

The gun went off and I went out. Some guy asked me what I knew about the course, I said hilly. He looked at the second turn we were going to make, leading up to it was a significant uphill, and he said yeah that's about right. I settled in to a third position, behind the marathon leader and half leader. I came through the mile, not looking at my watch, not knowing what was going to happen. It was 5:56. I figured that my stride was pretty impressive, and I was chugging. I felt like I had done some work. I kinda laughed and knew to worry about position.

I took the lead around mile two. I was leading and we had to make a left turn. The cop that was leading stopped at the turn, and didn't give me any real room to work around it. So I had to almost come to a stop and turn ninety degrees. I laughed out loud. Then we kinda ran onto this wooden chip trail for 100 meters and then exited into this parking lot (No really we did, very random). As I was in the trail I thought (while leading the race) I bet Allen Strickland would find this funny. At the first water stop nobody was ready, so I just ran over and did my best attempt to grab one. I missed it and knocked over about ten cups. The cyclist with me gave me his water bottle, but other than that I was fine.

So the course was hilly. Like very hilly. Every mile was rolling. Uphill and then downhill. The views of the country. Awesome. It was right around daybreak and it looked cool. I ended up being in second place somewhere out there. I knew there was a tough hill at mile five, and when we got to five I was ready for it. Then me made a left turn and I was going to run it. ARRRRRGHHHH. It was a hill. Maybe a kilometer. I don't know. I just started to climb. It wasn't fun. I knew that I wasn't going to win the race. My legs were going to be shot. I saw a speed limit sign and knew that was the top of the hill. It was not pleasant. I got to the top, the speed limit sign had one of those check your own speed on it. I was running 9 miles per hour. Yep sounds about right.

Running up the hill I was calling it the come to Jesus hill. I expected Jesus to appear and take me to heaven to end my suffering. Luckily as I have been told many times, while I slow down my stride still holds up. That's what happened. I got passed going back the way I came right when we started to go downhill. Now at this moment was the closest I will get to the Tour. People going one way, people cheering, it was cool. The rest of the course was hill again. It was the same loop back. I ended up running under 1:18 and got third. I finished and walked to the expo to get my bag. The girls there remarked that they were amazed I was in the half and already done, I thought about flirting with them, but my senses were telling me they were in high school. I made some (un)funny comments, ate a slice of pizza, and went back to the hotel to shower and then go to Charlotte.

I spent the night in Charlotte. Not really napping as I wanted to. Eating some ham. Watching Unknown and being disappointed that Liam Neeson didn't go ham. I woke up at 6:15 and ran around the area. I then ate brunch with my family. I ate a lot. Finished some work that I should have done last week. Packed my stuff and left. When I go to Charlotte, the memories come back. I try to always think of the good, but the ones that ended it stay longer. As I pulled into the drive way, my mom had some awards from the 4-Runner's Only and Greensboro Invite in her car to give (I guess) back to the school. Seeing those right in the driveway were a haunting reminder. Great times *, good memories, and then regret sets in.

*In my apartment I have the picture that Dean framed of the entire Top 7 on the stage at Tanglewood after we won the 3A race for 4-Runners. It's a mix of excitement, glee, and no-seriously-we-all-ran-bad-and-still-won look on our face. I have a big grin. What I thought would be a harbinger of things to come, in regard to winning at Tanglewood, never materialized. (That is one of the more significant pictures in my apartment, I am a sad lonely man. Which my sister pointed out when I was describing my place rather accurately "sounds to me that you don't have a girlfriend".)

That's just one aspect, and not including what I've written (poor grammar, childish takes) and what I've said to people here. I don't really go to church anymore. But you can't take the Catholicism out of me, there's the daily penance for the sins I've committed. It can be one reason that I went and moved four hundred miles away.

...as I was making my way to my hotel, I decided to call my parents to let them know I was coming home and what time I would be there. I called. Nobody answered. It was 8am. I left a message. Nobody returned my call. Yep that sounds about right.