Patron Saint of Slow Runners

I feel like the patron saint of slow runners.

I ran the St. George Half Marathon this morning. In previous races, I had always started way back in the pack; there's always a long wait to get to the starting line and then I spend the first 10 minutes dodging and weaving my way past clumps of walkers/slow runners before I settle into my pace. This time I decided to start nearer to the front of the pack, on the theory that I would not have the hassle of having to avoid all the slow runners. So I started about 20 feet from the leaders, you know - those guys that are super skinny and have bulging leg muscles and probably run 10 miles before breakfast everyday, including today. Yeah, that was as close as I got to them the whole day; oh, except for when they had completed the loop in the course and were on their last (12th) mile and passing me when I was only 7 miles into the run. So the good news is that I did not have to waste any time dodging and weaving slower runners. Turns out that everyone else had to go around me; I was the slower runner. The entire race. Ugh.

But that's okay. I found my nice slow pace and I stuck to it. Didn't walk once, even though I was sorely tempted over the last couple of miles. I felt like one of my main purposes in the race today was to make other people feel good. I could almost hear people thinking "Hey, as long as I passed that guy I must be doing okay; he looks like he's in shape; he's even wearing a St George Marathon shirt." Of course by the end of the race I heard on more than one occasion a pair or a group of runners carrying on a conversation as the passed me about going so slow. "I'm sorry" one woman would say to the other; "but I really haven't trained enough and you're so good to run slow with me."

That's okay. I'm the patron saint of slow runners.

But, I did slightly better than I was hoping for. I finished the course in about 2 hours 8 and 1/2 minutes. Just under a 10:00 minute per mile pace. Not bad.

And I made a whole lot of people feel pretty good about themselves.

Star Wars Family

Our kids have now officially seen Star Wars. We had a family movie night and we watched the original, episode IV, a New Hope.

It helped that our kids have recently discovered the Lego Star Wars game for the Wii that we got them for Christmas, so they were familiar with a couple of the scenes and some of the character names. At various points during the movie they would exclaim "I remember this part from the Wii!" It was kind of odd.

When Darth Vader first showed up in the movie, Katie exclaimed "it's Zurg! . . . oh wait, I mean Darth Vader."

Later in the movie, she asked when Luke was going to find out that Darth Vader is his father.

Just to show you how much these movies have pervaded our collective societal subconscious.