Springsteen 4.5 Miler

Well thats a misleading title if there ever was one. No, there is no such thing as a Springsteen 4.5 Miler. But I did attend a Springsteen concert on Monday and then ran a 4.5 mile race on Tuesday so I thought I would combine the two.

First, the concert. I worked half a day and drove down to Richmond Monday afternoon. When I got there I signed up for being allowed into the pit. For all the times I have seen The Boss I have never been in the pit. I was given number 740. 700 people were going to be allowed into the pit. A number would be selected at random and that number would become the new #1. That meant I needed the number pulled to be between 41 and 740. The number pulled was 7. So close but yet so far. Oh well. We thought this would mean that we would be allowed in next so we would be in the front row of the non pit people. Didnt work out that way though and after waiting an hour we were told we had to scramble over to another entrance. I ended up right at center court with a head on view of Bruce. He was probably 60 feet away. Not bad, all things considered.

Although the sound was poor, I thought the show was among the best I have ever seen. He slid across the floor, jumped into the audience, pulled kids up on stage with him 3 times, and did a solo on the piano of "For You". They took a request for "Crush on You" which he said they hadn't performed in over 20 years. Steven said we would understand why in a moment but it ended up being a good fun song. The encore lasted forever, meaning I didn't get home until after 1. But it was worth it.

The next day was the Paul Thurston 4.5 Miler at Burke Lake. I find the course to be moderately difficult but certainly not as bad as some of the recent cross country races I have run recently. I got off to a decent start and actually passed Tami Graf after a couple of minutes. But once we turned onto the trail and into the woods off she went, followed quickly by Sharyn Gordon. Sharyn mentioned that it was tough to breathe. She was right...the air was very heavy and stagnant.

Nonetheless, I felt relatively good for a guy that spent over 6 straight hours on his feet the night before and only got a few hours sleep. I had to stop for a walk break after 5 minutes but I kept the break to 1 minute. I followed the same routine up until I reached the water station after 40 minutes. I was pretty whipped at that point and alternated 2 minute runs with 2 minute walks for most of the rest of the race. I guess I would have been OK if it was a 3.5 mile race but it wasnt meant to be. I pushed myself along for the final 300 yards to the finish and settled for a time of 55:12(official was 55:23...not sure why there was such a big difference).
I was 53rd and last male and 78th out of 80 overall, beating a father and daughter by just under 2 minutes.

Notable finishers were:
Greg Grosicki 25:43 (winner)
Karsten Brown 26:42
Jim Moreland 30:53 (age group winner)
Jay Wind 31:35
Elaine Twigg 33:04 (female winner)
Kirk Gordon 33:11
Jon Palks 37:22
Tami Graf 48:06 (age group winner)
Sharyn Gordon 51:02
Kay Wallace 51:47 (person that finished in front of me)
Bryn Gaffen 57:13 (10 year girl that finished behind me)