Running on fumes

Three-and-a-half hours of a humidity-induced lack of sleep last night, a scorching 5,000 on the track this morning (the weather, not the time, believe me), an hour sitting in traffic on the way home from MIT this afternoon, and unneccessarily late NBA Finals/Sox games tonight find me still at work in front of a seemingly brighter-than-usual oversized flatscreen monitor, clinically useless yet somehow still functioning, albeit in zombie-like state. This will likely remain the case until A. my head hits the keyboard from shear exhaustion or B. we reach our appropriately named drop-dead final deadline of 1:30 a.m. My best guess is the actual outcome will likely fall somewhere in between those two proposed scenarios, but perhaps that's just me starting to hallucinate. Who the hell knows for sure. All I do know is that although the air outside still bears resemblance to Hades, I'm confident that I'll sleep like a wintering bear when my head hits the 'ol pillow sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Tomorrow's proposed long run, however, is still very much up in the (humid) air at this point.

All complaining aside, the aforementioned race turned out pretty well this morning. I won a watered-down (given the conditions, perhaps that's poor word choice) 5K this morning at MIT, although I nearly called Kevin at 8 to scratch my tired, sorry ass. But alas, at 11:15 I found myself on the starting line of the New England Championhips with a handful of other poor bastards for the start of a steamy 5,000 meters.

Kevin advised our 5,000 meter triumvirate of Mark, Erin and myself to forget about any pre-race plans of running for a fast time and simply try to finish in one piece. With temps already over 90, that amendment was just fine with me. Mark and I traded off laps for a mile or so before he fell off pace and I ended up running solo the rest of the way. From there I just tried to keep a fast enough pace that would allow me to escape with a win. My time was a relatively slow 15:53, but a win's a win and I'm not gonna complain too much about those. They're few and far between these days.

It was a good day on the whole for the (Insert Sponser Here) Boston team, with Erin taking top honors in the women's 5K, Joe mowing down the field in the 800 and Roland winning the 1,500. It was fun to be a part of it all and exciting to watch my teammates run so well. That's what it's all about.

Quote of the day:

I feel like doing something cerebral tonight. I think I'll go see Nacho Libre.
- Kevin Curtin