Jerry Garcia Memorial 4.2 Miler

7:30pm on the Charles (love that dirty water), warm, humid-ish, but not so bad. Jerry Garcia Memorial 4.2 Miler. 25:32 (6:05 average pace, pretty even splits, I think, laid back hippie mile markings), 11th of 862 (surprisingly high place for me in a race this size.) I gave gave myself 12 seconds for a crazy slow awkward start. 800+ people tearing down a 3 foot wide sidewalk, we were admonished several times to not venture into the road. Nearly rolled my ankle twice, an adventure.

Ran hard but not killing myself, almost relaxing in the low 6:00s at some points. When I start feeling comfortable, I know it's time to push harder. Some points were fairly tough, concentrating lately on more self-awareness, how I feel, precisely, thinking about Siddhartha, suffering, it's okay, face it head on, it's good, it's life. Of course, it's kind of bizarre that my life is so comfortable I need to go out and find artificial ways to experience suffering.

Anyway, I was especially glad I was able to catch and hang with a little pack with the second place female; that's who you race in a race, right, the little pack of peers around you, and I ended up first in that pack, so pretty self-satisfied with this, especially after I had about the worst run of my life on Tuesday, 6.7 miles, Longfellow-Charles-Smoots double loop, wicked bonked at 3, hot, humid, dying, lucky to even finish without stopping; the kind of run where I really felt like throwing in the towel for good. I just can't take the heat like I could as a youngster (by cracky!)

Big post race party, beer, food, tie dye, Grateful Dead-ish band. I'm pretty sure there's a Grateful Dead gene, and I don't have it, I've just always liked music too much to like the Dead, never felt they were about the music, it was all the other hippie shit. While I'm trashing sixties icons, I also never like The Doors or Van Morrison either, fwiw. I do though have a special appreciation for hippie shit, I miss the sixties sometimes, I was a kid, but I remember it well, I had older sisters. I've a vivid memories of me and my sisters, summer of 1968, tanning ourselves in the sun on our farm in Maine (me, 9 years old, working on my tan, good grief), listening to the radio, Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, by "the late, Otis Redding" the DJ always reverently emphasized "the late", the loss still fresh. My sisters wanted to go to Woodstock, but were blocked by the parental establishment. It was all around me. Anyway, what the hell am I yammering about. Over and out.

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I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen.

— Radiohead