Stopped while it was still good

Thursday was the most boring day ever at work. We all get this Friday off, and people trickled out early all day for a 4 day weekend. I was nearly the last person there at 4pm. It's sort of an odd feeling. Normally we were such a busy group. I miss that. I lived like the retired person I want to be, today. Slept in big time, which for me is 8am. Slow breakfast with good coffee. Sat out on the patio, and worked on my novel for a while. Such a beautiful day.

Midafternoon I decided it was time for a run. I wasn't sure how it would go, my legs, hips, and back have been twingy on and off all day. Easy start, and settled in about the half K mark. Ran easy around the neighborhood, ending up doing 4 K in 30 minutes, hardly breaking a sweat in high 20's temperatures. My legs felt great! A few slight running twinges, but no pain, no limping, no weakness. Even though I could have kept going, and thought about it, I figured it was better to stop while it was still good. Nice even pace, 7:30 per K on average, slightly slower at the beginning, slightly quicker at the end. So happy with it. Stretched after.

I might be up for a longer run on Sunday, during the IMB bike. I'll be cheering on my real life buddies Leana, Kelly, and my blog buddy SUAR, and waiting till they cross the finish line. I've said this before, but the Ironman finish line camera is like salted peanuts. You can't stop. First come the pros, and the elite guys, then the elite women. I think watching IMCDA I saw a guy in my age group finish in under 10 hours. Just amazing.

Then there are the superb athletes that finish 12 hours or under. Things start to slow down and in some ways it gets even more amazing. You start getting the people that didn't know if they would be able to do it, and finish faster than they dreamed of. Racers overcoming huge obstacles to finishing. You get people coming in that finish on guts and nothing else, with some of them collapsing like the puppeteer cut the strings at the finish line. You know they left NOTHING out on the course. Towards the end you get people crossing that have been debating with themselves all day, will I make the cut-off times? Their relief and triumph crossing the line is nearly enough to make you cry.

There is usually someone struggling to get in before the clock ticks over 17 hours. Volunteering at the finish line in 2009, watching Sister Madonna Buder finishing with little time on the clock, watching the huge crowd going absolutely bananas for her is one of the most inspiring things I remember about the day. I chatted with one of the spectators, about why they stuck around till midnight. It turns out they hadn't been there all that long, only a few hours. They didn't care about the pros. "They get paid, and it's their full time job. It's impressive, but not inspiring. Watching an 80 year old woman finishing Ironman is both, on steroids."

Awesome BBQ bison burgers for supper. Now I'm out in the warm evening, drinking wine, and working on my novel. The idea was to have something to pitch at the WWC convention mid August. I still don't have an ending, or at least not one I like, and there are a few plot soft spots. I wonder how far I'd get with the overall idea, the beginning, some sample pages, and see what the publisher's think?

Some more pretty flowers for you. No grumpy cat though, he's asleep somewhere.