Riverbank Run

17.7 K (Doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 25 K but I liked it none the less). I left my house at 8:00 (instead of the 6:45 that would have been necessary had I started down town), I warmed up with a 3 mile bike ride to the park, cheered for all of the 10 K runners on the north side and made it to the 2 mile mark on the south side just in time to watch the elite runners blow past. I stretched until the 9 mile pace group came past and slipped in with the other 17,000 people streaming out of the city. The new portion of the course on O'Brian was more challenging than I expected and my calves are going to remind me of this for the next several days. Also the road was a little narrow when the front of the pack started back into town and for several miles runners are going both ways on only two lanes but not a horrible change overall. WET though!!! Nothing quite like carrying 4 extra pounds of wet cotton clothes. At mile marker 13 I dropped back out of the race. I'm content with 11 miles in 90 minutes (quick math- 10 eight minute miles and one 10 minute mile :)). I jogged slooooowly back to my bike and started to ride the 3 miles home. But somehow I had forgotten that those brake pads I put on last spring have a very fine line between damp and not working. And in the pouring rain I blew right past damp. Unfortunately that is not the only thing I blew by. The good news is I didn't hit any runners or one of the 40,000 spectators. Bad news is I bent both of my rims.... again. Oh, well. Back home in twenty minutes without out any of the crush and chaos of the end of the race downtown. I may have had to cut off 4 miles off but I saved some $$ and enjoyed myself much more. I was in a hot shower with a great post race snack half an hour after finishing. (The last several times I've been miserable for an hour while staggering through the crush of people, cold, wet and painful back to my car, waiting for the rest of traffic to clear...) Overall a fine day!