Good Night Sweet Prince

...well it's been some time. Like nearly 16 weeks to accurate. Oh what has been going on. In August I was out of shape. This is what happened. I started to get back into shape-got into shape-was really into shape-then kinda hit a funk-then kinda wasn't that focused with training-then got out of shape. Now I am trying to get back into shape.

I guess this will be the recap of the last race I've done but here are some high (or low) lights of my racing so far:

Kentlands 5k: 16:40 8th overall
Run Geek Run 8k: 27:19 11th overall
BWI Airport 4 miler: 21:14 4th overall
Boo run for your life 10k: 34:14 3rd overall
Veterans Day 10k: 34:21 30-40 something overall

Now for the current race, Footlocker Open 5k: 16:33 34th overall.

But before we get to the race recap, I'm going to have to go all CSI on this picture that is bothering me. I have two contentions: a) when was this picture taken? and b) where was this picture taken?

Here is said picture:

Time to breakdown what I know:

First I am thinking that this picture was taken in my freshman year of college and if that is the case then it has to be in the months of April to May of 2001. I know that by looking at my hair. Fall semester of freshman year I bleached my hair and then over the winter break I got it cut fairly short. Since my hair grows like crazy, and by looking at the picture that my hair is jutting out of my hair it has to be fairly long. For these reasons I am concluding that this picture is in the time frame of those two months.

But I have to dig deeper. I am starting to think that it was taken in May and may have been during exams week. I am going with this theory because I am looking at my face. Most notably my chin. If you can tell (and I really need to find some way to blow this up) it appears that there is facial hair growing on my chin. Why does this facial hair make me think that it's May? Because this was at a point where I decided in my life that not shaving during exams would be the most sensible thing to do. I kinda envisioned myself like hockey players during the playoffs and not shaving, and so that goes the thinking. But then again when I was 19 this was how much facial hair I could grow after a week or two.

Ok I've kinda figured out when this picture was taken, but where was it taken?

I don't have the full picture here, but in the picture there is a bike that is on the right. Since I am saying that the picture was taken in May of 2001, then it's not my dorm room because I didn't have a bike till Senior year of college. My friend John, in the picture, had a bike, but he kept it outside. Hmm? Also there are other clues in this picture that are making me think that this picture was not taken in John's dorm room because his dorm room had two windows in it. This picture only had one window. Another way to further conclude that is was not taken in my dorm room, at this point in the year (remember May) my roommate had moved out and I had the beds kinda parallel in the middle of the room, not up against the wall, like in the picture above. Now where could it have been taken? I am starting to remember the details and it was in....ah crap...that makes sense...bad memories coming back...yep that makes sense. It was most likely in my ex-girlfriends room. Now it makes sense. I want to go back in time and tell that young B-Mac that all that running you will do will not take away all the pain and misfortune that will happen. That moving to another city will not heal wounds. No matter how far you go and change, people will always remember you a certain way.

Crap!

Ugh!

For the race!

I woke up at 2am on Saturday convinced that I was about to vomit. I went to the bathroom and was fine, but I was sweating and not feeling great. I had a stomachache. What could have been the culprit? The chicken parm? Or the chocolate pie slice? Either way I wasn't feeling that great when I woke up.

Everything else leading up to the race was uneventful. I warmed up. And got ready on the line. It was time to go. I was feeling good. I got out and was feeling fine. I was up in the top 30 and running what I knew I could. I clicked off the first mile at 5:04 and that felt fine. I went into the next mile and while I wasn't feeling awful, I could tell that I wasn't as fresh as earlier. I'm not saying that I went out to hard, but I was fine. I hit the next mile in 5:28 and realized that a PR was not going to happen. That was pretty crushing. But here is the thing. I didn't give up. I challenged myself and passed some people (although they passed me back). I ran the last mile in 5:23 and hit the 200 in 37 seconds. Not a great time. It was my fastest time at McAlpine and in Footlocker history.

Frankly there wasn't a lot of thought going on about past races and what I've done at that course. HEY I'VE BEEN NAMED COACH OF THE YEAR THERE. I was just another somebody there. Disconnection from a former life. That's what it has become. Things had been coming up and I realized that this was it. I am interloper. A gypsy. I don't really have a true place to call home. I live in a city that I like, but how long will I be there? I can't say more than a couple years, then it will be somewhere else, and somewhere else after that. It's time. I see faces that I knew and it doesn't bring me anything. People move on. Things happen that I don't know about. People happen that I don't know about.

So my parents are probably moving to some place that is 8 miles from where we live now. It's still part of the Charlotte area, but it's a place that I don't feel any connection to. It's a realization that the time I go to Charlotte is slipping away. That's not what I was thinking when I was done and doing the cool down. It was more like, "this is the last race I've probably run in Charlotte". And fitting that it was at McAlpine. The first race I ran. The place where things came together. Where I became a genius, then an idiot, then a genius again. That's how it comes to pass. Somethings stay the same, some just go through the winds and go somewhere else.

I ended up right by my car and say Shea. We talked for about 10 minutes. That was an enjoyable way to end the race. He told me something that I had heard every year since 2004. But it looks like this year it will happen. It was fitting. It wasn't like two ships passing in the night, like it is whenever I talk to people I know in Charlotte. It was a denouement. It wasn't time to move on. I told him I was getting a hair cut. I guess I grew up.