Firecracker 5K

I was happy to start off this holiday (the 104th anniversary of Dad's birth) by running the Firecracker 5K in downtown Ann Arbor. Conditions were splendid - 70 degrees, so it was warm but not hot, and with broken overcast. It was a course that did a one-mile loop from the starting line and then back to it, at which point Michelle saw me and got a picture; then there was a larger second loop that included a very special passage. In the latter part of it, we crossed the Diag, the hallowed central portion of the University of Michigan campus, replete with a metal block M sunk into the ground. As I crossed beside it (careful not to step ON it), I looked at my watch and quickly calculated that perhaps I could finish in under 33 minutes, which would have easily broken an 11-minute pace ... pretty good for me under recent conditions. But, alas! when I crossed the finish line my watch showed 34:08 (a pace of 11:00 even). Still, though, I'm glad to have done it, and improved somewhat on the 5K I ran in Lansing back on May 14 (34:34), and greatly over the 5K I ran at St. Olaf on June 4 (in a miserable 36:56).
These two pictures, taken by my wife, are (first) from the finish; and (second) from the one-mile point, after we had looped back to the start.
I also noticed from my records that this is the 5-year anniversary of the first race I did following my accident, when I ran a 5K in downtown Ann Arbor on July 4, 2006 (in 36 minutes even).

Long run

For the past few years, I have tried to do a long run (which I arbitrarily define as anything over 5 miles) each Saturday morning. Today I tried to bite off a big chunk, and go 10 miles according to the half-marathon training schedule for the race I want to do in late August, even though I've not done 10 miles since April 2009. Setting off at 7 AM today, the early part of the run went fine (though I found it mentally very challenging to think of that many miles yet ahead of me). But after the 5-mile point, I began suffering once again from the inexplicable but dramatic lean to the right that affected me two weeks ago also, and consequently decided to shut it down early (just shy of 6 miles) and bus home. Now I am perplexed about the race - not doing the 10 miles today is a serious, but not fatal, blow. However, I am undecided as to whether it would be wiser to just concede that at my age (54) and post-trauma condition, it is not realistic and thus I should not pursue the race (though I know that many older runners than myself compete, and, after all, severe though my accident was, it DID happen 18 years ago!); or whether I should still continue doggedly to pursue this goal.