One of my best friends was a runner in high school. His favorite thing was to be in the lead, often at record pace, and have the announcers call his name over the loud speakers. They would sometimes even comment on the pace over the speakers. On a 1600 he could keep that pace up for a good 3 laps, often having a 100 meter lead going into the last lap. But I never saw him win. That last lap was too much. The winners followed a plan, a pace that they had rehearsed a hundred times before. They were able to kick at the end and easily catch my friend.

We have one shot at this race. I have no idea about the pace. You can’t rehearse it. We try to gauge how we are doing but really don’t know. The bummer is we don’t even know how long the race is. So forget having our names called over the loudspeaker. We just want to be able to finish.

Tara is doing pretty good. Her abdomen problems have been gone for several days. As usual, she is short on energy. Today was a 7 though. Better than the 4 of yesterday. She went for a walk in the afternoon which pretty much spent her. We hope she gets better and better before we leave town for a few days late next week and over Memorial Day weekend. That would be a huge blessing.