(photo by Ken Trombatore; click for original)

"Tainted Love? That's Soft Cell, not Depeche Mode!" Caren corrects me as we run along.

The tune is today's earworm, on heavy rotation in my head since 6:30am this morning when I heard it on the radio. Humidity is high today, and by this point in the race my singlet is gleaming wet with perspiration.

~2 miles @ ~13 min/mi + 6.1 miles @ 11:37 min/mi

"You look great!" I tell Mical Honigfort, who in her seventh month is suddenly looking "great with child"—after beating me by several minutes in the last two MCRRC races. Today she's a volunteer race official at the Lake Needwood cross-country 10k, and she's lovely, glowing. So are the rest of us, a few minutes later as CM Manlandro and Caren Jew and I trot along the course for half an hour before the main event.

As we head for the starting line Don Libes notices my soggy singlet and asks, "Is that sweat?" I inform him that I've moved the flags and ribbons that mark the race route. "Just run past anything that looks like a barrier—you'll be the only one on course then!" He doesn't fall for it, alas, and sprints ahead with CM. She reports that Don initially believes this to be a 5k race, and appears rather shocked when he discovers the truth near the halfway point.

Meanwhile, Caren and I proceed to run with Megan Carroll, who chats with me about various movies and TV series that we've each found amusing. Megan is ramping up her training and is also coming back from last weekend's tough Womens Half Marathon. She begins to flag after a couple of miles and tells me to go on ahead. But I inform her that, as per the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (or in the spell to summon Beetlejuice) she must tell me three times to make it true.

"I release you, I release you, I release you!" Megan chants. So I wish her well and accelerate to catch up with Caren. She and I hang together for the rest of the race. As we cross the dam at the end of Lake Needwood and come down the final hill Caren points out her husband Walter and their daughters Ashley and Jenna. We wave, then sprint toward the finish line to come in at 1:12:10, a bit faster than my 12:00+ pacer shirt's promise.

During our cooldown walk we visit with Don Libes and his daughter Kenna, who is currently racing shorter distances. I admire her orange-and-blue "classic" MCRRC-design running shorts—I'm wearing women's shorts of the same pattern. Kenna tells me that hers are men's shorts. We decide, however, not to trade today.

(cf. Jog Log ...) - ^z - 2008-10-05

(correlates: At My Pace, 2008-07-11 - MidSummer Night's Mile, HuntingSeason, ...)