February 15th, 10:20 AM

Sat down in the teacher’s lounge and tried signing up for Broad Street. Entered all of my information, hit register button. Site crashed.

Neither surprised nor concerned. Decided to wait a couple hours and try again.

12:45 PM

Spent lunch break filling out registration form (again). Listened to friends talk about their Broad Street plans– they’re going to jog a mile, walk a mile, etc. Are you signed up yet? Are you?

Hit register button, greeted with a “PLEASE WAIT…”

1:00 PM

Walked through hallways with open laptop cradled under elbow. Waited patiently.

2:00 PM

Taught class with open laptop on desk. Checked in periodically. Still patient.

2:50 PM

Patience lost. Closed laptop and went to track practice. Resolved to try again later.

4:00 PM

Stopped for gas on way home. Read text saying that registration for Broad Street is closed.

4:05 PM

Recovered from fit of rage. Adopted philosophical approach to exclusion.

Still bummed.

Ever since that bad 10 mile run on Monday, I’ve been nursing my poor right leg back to health. I’ve been doing low mileage, and running slow on some days. And after I run, I’ve been taking advantage of the trainer’s ice bath (what a wonderful machine). This close to my Big Race, it’s important to rest any possible injuries. In fact, it should help my eventual time much more than hurt it.

After all, not resting could have disastrous results. I would hate to keep training at the same intensity, only to end up sitting on the side of Broad Street with a pulled hamstring. I think that’s the worst case scenario.

And the lower mileage is appropriate for where I am in my training for the race. I should have begun tapering on Monday (two weeks is a good amount of time before a 10-mile race), and cutting my miles back to about 60-70% of the norm. Even with my possible injury, 60% is easily achievable. And I shouldn’t have enough time to lose actual fitness- my base training will last longer than a couple of weeks.

Does it sound like I’m trying to convince myself as well as you? That’s because I am. Like most runners, I have a pretty narrow idea of how the world works. Diligence leads to fitness, laziness leads to weakness. So, as these runners often have to do, I’m trying to swallow my indomitable spirit before it further harms me.

I started to talk about The Broad Street Run in Monday’s post; While it is still two months away, I think it deserves a little more exploration.

Broad Street is my favorite race. I love the tremendous feeling of goodwill from all of the spectators as they scream and bang on drums and throw confetti. They lose their minds a little bit- it’s like they took a leaf out of the racers’ collective book.

I’ve run Broad Street twice now. The first time was just another practice run- I didn’t concern myself with time. The second time I genuinely raced my hardest, with the following results (taken from the website):

(A quick side note: I ranked 584th overall, and 534th out of men. That means that there were 50 women who beat me. Holy crap, ladies, way to go.)

This year I want to go sub-60. I want to average a less-than-six-minute-mile pace for 10 miles, PRing by at least 2:33. And I think I can do it, too- but I’m going to need my hamstring to start behaving again. Once that happens, I should have my mileage back up and my training back on schedule for my biggest goal of the year.