Sunday, October 29, 2006

Pirates of East Austin

Post RR50K, we were to do a 12mile run on Sunday. All our half marathon folks were running the Texas Twister 10K on Sunday, and a decision was made to run 6 miles first, and then run the next 6 in the 10K and pace someone. What with holding the Rogue pirate flags, and it being the Halloween weekend, I decided to get some more pirate gear and run a pirate. A pirate bandana, a hat, an eye-patch and a sword were obtained. The fuel belt served as a band to hang the sword from, and it was all Yo, Ho, Ho, and a bottle of rum!

Immense joy comes while running in costume. All the runners, the cheering public, the volunteers directing the runners, the water stop folk, the cops on the course -- everyone says hello and wants to talk to you. Khushbu, having missed couple of training runs, was not very sure how the distance would go, and I decided to pace her at 12minute miles. We held our pace within a 5second error margin for all the 6 miles, and speeded up the last 300 meters. All the Asha folks had gathered either as runners or as part of the cheering staff, and everyone had a great race. Nivas with his 7minutes per mile pace, even came 2nd in his age group!

One should seriously consider running more races in different costumes. Lot of consideration and thought currently being given for a (warm weather) marathon dressed as Gandhi, with the dhoti, chappals, stick, glasses and hair (or the lack of it).

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