SCOPE Fun Run

Previously, I had left today's date open with tomorrow's half marathon looming. I had even decided not to do the Pope John XXIII Fun Run this year -- the only race where I've actually lucked into age-group placing.

With Paulette (Runner's World forumite "kayano") in the midst of her treatment battle with cancer, though, I couldn't pass up an obvious way to show support like this morning's running event at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center -- the Sprint for Colorectal Oncology Prevention and Education, or SCOPE. SCOPE, get it? (I know, some of you are a little behind in getting that kind of humor.)

Not being pre-registered, I drove down to the Texas Medical Center and was in a little rush to perform walk-up registration. I was directed by volunteers to park on the eighth floor of the parking garage. When I saw that the elevators were busy with arriving participants, I went down the stairs instead. After registering, I took the stairs back up to drop off stuff I wasn't using for the race in my car. Then once more back downstairs, I looked for a restroom. Signs directed me into M.D. Anderson itself to bathrooms on the second floor. Wouldn't you know it, the escalators weren't running....

After that stair workout, I lined up and we were off and running. While I was inside the hospital, my Garmin gave me the "Are you indoors?" question, and I foolishly selected yes. Now I was outside, and in the first mile of my race, the GPS was shut off. I was trying to select a decent 5K pace, but had no idea how fast I was really running until I reached the first mile marker in 7:56. Uh oh. That was WAY too fast.

I slowed down in mile 2, completing that in 9:16, but the damage was done. I had triggered my Puke Point, and was in trouble. I thought back to the history of the Texas Revolution and of James Fannin's sacrifice with his men at Goliad, and how it might be a little disrespectful to hurl last night's spinach and salmon onto the street that bears the colonel's name. So I stopped running and started walking.

Crossing the finish line with an elapsed time of 28:06, I decided that taking a sub-30-minute time today was good enough. I got a T-shirt from the race, and plan to send it to Paulette this week.