Running is epicurean

Apologies all around for not poking my snout around these here parts for the past week and a half. I’ve been occupied getting repeatedly kidney-punched by academe. The end of the semester, coupled with trying to figure out holiday plans, is kind of like being tied to a chair with electrical tape by Pauly Shore and being forced to watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch looped on TBS for six days straight.

I did want to take a very brief moment here, though, and mention yesterday’s 10th Annual City of Sparks Turkey Trot 10K. The weather was eerily reminiscent of past Colorado Turkey Trots: as cold, clammy, and muddy as a pair of wrinkled pajamas abandoned in a parking lot. I had the distinct pleasure of gobbling this race up (so to speak) with friend-os Renee and Brian.

The race was about as good as one could expect for something that happened in Sparks (whose recently adopted city motto is something like, “Sparks: Where Suburbia Goes to Curl Up in a Sewage Culvert and Die”). The only remotely scenic part of the whole experience–and believe me this is a stretch–were the last two miles around the Sparks “Marina,” an open-pit granite quarry that flooded a number of years ago. The city has since converted it into a soulless, wind-scorched wasteland of manic-depressive, stocked trout and withered crabgrass covered in goose shit.

Anyway, the race went well, despite the lackluster setting. I ended up running about 45 seconds short of my father’s 10K PR, set in the polyester glory days of the early 1980s (and setting one of my own in the process). 8th overall, which I’m thrilled with. I even managed to work myself hard enough during the race to cause a couple dry heaves in the finishing chute.

But that’s beside the point. Everyone knows that the real reason to do a Turkey Trot is to piss off your jackass, bowhunting aficionado Uncle Phil at dinner later on in the day by saying things like, “I’m so glad I ran six miles this morning! I can eat as many of these baked root vegetables covered in gruyère as I want! How’s your diabeetus, by the way?” Preferably after you’ve had about three glasses of pinot and everyone’s osmosing the National Dog Show on NBC while their eyes cloud over and their belts are in serious danger of being compromised by dramatically expanded waistlines.

Even though I’m a day late here, I’d like to offer up here a few things I’m thankful for this year: Clooney beard, running shorts with built-in underwear, the expression, “Hey, could we put some sounds on?” when you’re driving around in your friend’s car and you know he’s got something good like Alabama’s Greatest Hits in his tapedeck but he’s insisting on listening to some garbage like REO Speedwagon, John Peel sessions, Will Weston’s brownies, the fact that there’s an entire homemade vegan triberry pie in my kitchen awaiting my attention, the fact that Cillian Murphy is a runner, cilantro (good on everything, apparently), and, more than anything else, a girl in central Texas who I suspect maintains as creepily close of an emotional attachment to her running shoes as I do.

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Most recent run and atmospheric conditions: see above.

Workout: 6.2 miles.

Total Mileage to Date: 733