~3.1 miles @ ~7.3 min/mi

Clay Wright, young brother of my friend LaNedra, gives me a punch to the shoulder before the start of the race and sends greetings from his sister. He then proceeds to beat me but only by ~7 seconds. I lead him for the first mile, a too-fast 7:06 by my GPS, slow to 7:13 and then ~7:30 returning on the hilly out-and-back, with a kick to near-7 pace on the final fraction. Gayatri Datta accepts my offer of a ride to the race at its new Seneca Creek State Park location. She did ~9 miles yesterday and was up until ~2am cleaning-up after the New Years Eve dinner that she served to Paulette and me plus comrades in her lovely home. I drop her off on the way into the park so she can stand in line for me, turn in last year's timing chip, and get me a bib number and chip for 2012.

In the back of the car I'm carrying a big orange traffic cone marked "MCRRC" that I found in Rock Creek Park, forgotten or misplaced there after a club race. Jim Farkas is directing traffic to the parking area. I slip the cone into a line of them by the road, throwing off somebody's inventory count in an unusual direction. Christina Caravoulias joins me in the jog to the starting area. I've forgotten my gloves and try holding my hands in a Parvati-style mudra to relax them against the chill. A ragged "V" of geese cruise southward overhead at mile 2. The official results give me 66th place among 376 overall, 61st out of 209 males, 7th of 30 in the 55-59 year old male cohort, time 22:48.

(cf. GPS trackfile, ...) - ^z - 2012-01-12