“I'm going to regret this tomorrow,” I said, cracking open a beer. And regret it I did.

Didn't sleep well, woke up at 4:00 and couldn't get back to sleep for the longest time. Then, in the morning, I had to truck all our laundry to the laundromat, where I spent 2+ hours and thirty-plus dollars. Changed into my now-clean running clothes in the laundromat's bathroom, which was the size of a bootbox and smelled like period. Raced back home, grabbed my shoes, dropped off Mom, dumped the clean, folded laundry in in the garage, put the rest of it in the dryer (our washer is kaput, hence the laundry field-trip), grabbed a slice of bologna and a piece of whole-wheat bread to slap it on, and drove very quickly back to Northampton. Was freaking out that I would arrive too late to get my race packet but it all worked out OK. Met up with Karen, who was celebrating her birthday by running her first-ever road race, and her family. Her husband was good enough to hold my race shirt and half-eaten carbo-bar. We lined up at the start and then boom! We were off.

I'd like to throttle the person who laid out the course — starting it with a big hill was murder and didn't do my hangover an ounce of good. Once the hill was crested, I focused too inwardly and didn't spend much time appreciating the fall colors on the street where I used to live. The only time I walked was at the water station about halfway through; would've made my time if I'd taken a few fewer walking steps there, but oh well. Kept running up Grove Street, kept running up 66, and was feeling about to die when I heard, “Go, Mommy!” from a familiar-looking minivan. Monstro, Mom, and the boys had driven out to greet me along the raceway. Soooo excellent. Probably the high point of my year. From that point, I ran down the big hill and across the concrete bridge (ouch), hammed it up for the photographers and put in a good kick at the finish.

3.1 miles in 40:12. Not great, but after the morning I'd had, and the night before that, I'm OK with it. It's a PR because I've never run a 5k race, and it's a heck of a lot faster than my last road race, which was July 2009 and had me running four miles in 1:09:??. So, there's been a great deal of improvement and even though I feel like hell right now, I'm glad I did it.

Happy birthday, Karen!