Race day

The alarm was set for 5:30 a.m.

I had a plan. I would wake up, stretch and shake the rust off of my barely rested muscles, and then get back into bed after having made the first of several cups of black coffee. 

If it worked correctly, there would be plenty of time to gather the gear I'd packed the night before and warm up the car. 

Of course, this hurry-up-and-wait approach works a little too well. Often I will look at my watch and realize I have lost track of time. 

When I check now ... 

It's three a.m., three-0-one, now ... and soon to be three-0-two. I'm still awake, with the imaginary screenplay of the events to follow playing on my mind in a loop. 

Why can't I sleep? Race-day anxiety, I suppose. 

Seems wasted on a person like me. 

Fast is relative. I usually finish so far from the front runners that the light from said front runners is not likely to shine anywhere near me. 

I don't even keep pace with the sweepers -those caution-cone-colored volunteers who circle on bikes with the look of concern creasing their faces. 

I read their faces: Will I be the person they need to steer toward a medical tent? "Gosh I hope not," I reply wordlessly with a smile and thumbs- up as I continue to jog along, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. 

Three-forty-five. I finally sleep. When I wake again there is only a single minute ticking down until the alarm is set to ring. 

I turn it off before the rousing clang begins. I don't want to risk waking the house unnecessarily. Not that my herd-of-elephants tip-toeing won't do just that anyway. 

As I stand and stretch in my darkened room, I run through the plan for the rest of the morning: The drive to Schenectady, the finding of parking, the warming up in place behind the start line. 

I wonder why I do this to myself. Heading off before the sun rises to run more than nine miles, alone ... in a crowd of more than a thousand.

I could sleep in and run my own race later. 

The small part of me that lacks the compulsive impulse wishes I would crawl back into bed. No one would think any less of me, not even me. I might gain a few points for the wild abandon. 

But coffee calls. 

Downstairs in the kitchen, a note leans on the coffee maker. "Coffee is inside, ready to go. Have a great race."

By the time I park my car and find my place in line, I am truly ready. I start slowly, keeping an easy rhythm through The Stockade. I find my race pace as I approach Union College, tracing my initials from Lennox to Waverly. 

The neighborhoods seem to fly by despite my slow jog. At every corner, there are people waving signs as they cheer on someone they know along with dozens of strangers. 

The city seems as warm as the morning's sun.

I am reminded why I love this course as we dip into Niskayuna before climbing back toward Central Park and into Vale Cemetery through to the eventual finish downtown. 

 It has nothing to do with the realization that I shaved ten minutes off my 15k time. That's just a bonus