Even though they still ooze, my toes have healed enough to allow me to run again. On Tuesday, the gym at work sponsored a little 5K race. It was not a giant affair \u2014 only a dozen people entered \u2014 but I was pleased to managed to win pretty cleanly. I took off right at the beginning and never looked back.<\/p>\n
Or did I?<\/p>\n
The course followed the loop around the campus. Not being quite 5K, we also had to run down Seaport a ways and turn around. See map.<\/a><\/p>\n Cute little four inch pylons with cute little arrows drawn on them like happy faces marked the course. OK, cool. I saw a bunch of them, as they directed me around the loop and down the straightaway towards Redwood City.<\/p>\n I ran down Seaport, and eventually I saw two large orange pylons and a metal bar ahead of me. So I planned how I would jump over the bar and turn around and come back on the other side of the pylons. As I got closer, I realized that the bar was actually a downed light pole. Wow, pretty severe. How about that.<\/p>\n I turned around and finished the course, easily in first place, running in 20:10, almost two minutes ahead of the fellow who came in second. The fellow who arranged it congratulated me, and told me I won the $25 gift card for first place.<\/p>\n As I overheard him talking to someone else about how he set out the course, I started thinking how lucky it was that the downed light pole happened to be right at the turnaround. Then I remembered how those pylons were much bigger than all the others. That’s when it dawned on me: that was not the designated turn-around point.<\/p>\n Sheepishly, I went to him and said, “Um, I think maybe I cheated.” I explained what happened. Another racer chimed in that the actual turnaround point was only maybe 70 feet after where I turned around, so he agreed that my margin was sufficient to make no difference to my first place.<\/p>\n It sure made me feel stupid though. Maybe I do have an athlete in me. I just wish it wasn’t in my brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even though they still ooze, my toes have healed enough to allow me to run again. On Tuesday, the gym at work sponsored a little 5K race. It was not a giant affair \u2014 only a dozen people entered \u2014 but I was pleased to managed to win pretty cleanly. I took off right at … Continue reading 5K Racist (or “Cheaty Gonzales”)<\/span>