Woo-Freaking-Hoo!

Riverside Raincross 5K 2008 results:

The story goes like this: Re-learning that you can be caught,beaten into a bloody mass, and then laughed at by the walkers and stroller-pushers from Hell, I was up at the front of the pack and made people pass me. Stick that in your heart-monitor and smoke it!

Turns out, training for a race actually helps. I may even consider writing a book about how to run. I'm sure it will be the first on the subject.

Anyhow, long story longer is that I did pretty decent in my race. Consistent with where I've been running, but a little better than last year.

I'll put up both last years results and this years, just so I can keep them all straight:

Last year's Riverside Raincross 5K:
Overall - 60th
Time - 24:14
Age Division - 5th

This year's Riverside Raincross 5K:
Overall - 47th
Time - 23:52
Age Division - 2nd

That's right, boys and girls. I was 2nd in my age division. Doesn't make me Olympic hopeful material, but it certainly does make me hopeful!

How I Roll

Basically, I'm a lackey.

I'm not a lackey to a super-hero. Those guys get killed all the time for dramatic effect, and to truly enrage the hero who then goes all noble and stuff on the baddies.

Nopers, I'm the lackey to the bad, evil, corporate empire. The ones that attend dinners with Republicans, laughing about how much money they've made together.

Yeah, that's how evil we are.

And life is great for a lackey. Let me tell you. Whenever an do-gooder breaks into our headquarters, I'm one of the eighteen guys that gets ordered to take him/her down, and then quickly is defeated, left moaning over my own lack of skills.

But here's the thing: I'm still alive.

Yeah, that's right. The hero doesn't want me. I'm just a deluded follower. He/she wants the head honcho, and that's so very not me.

The upside to this, is when there's derision in the ranks, my particular Big Cheese actually has my back. That's right, I have an evil manager who knows and understand that the potential for me to assist in some later operation depends mostly on my still being alive and upright.

So, take Tuesday, for example. Another evil Duchess decides that I've stepped out of line, and leveled her Death Ray in my direction. Knowing where I stand in the world, I take it like a man. I do nothing. Immediately, my boss leaped into action, rallied her own troops, powered up her Death Ray Nullifier (boy, was that a sound investment) and went to work.

Next thing I know, I have an email with the title line of: Apologies.

I love being a lackey.

Diamond Valley Lake - Results

So, here it is, the much anticipated, over-hyped results from my last 5K at Diamond Valley Lake.

I ran a time of 24.21, which gave me a split of 7.50. This placed me 33rd overall, but apparently in a HUGE division of similar-aged runners, I was only 17 of 21.

Bastards.

Still, that's a much better race than the previous two where I was slipping backward in times and splits.

The trick for me this time was I left my iPod at home. Yeah, that's right. It was flat out, racing as God intended it . . . except with clothes and shoes and safety equipment. But other than that, exactly how God intended it.