some captain I am..

I'm such a f***up. Okay, maybe that's too harsh a word but I know better. I've run this relay several times but this time around, I completely underestimated my fellow teammates. They told me their approximate running pace so I had an idea when I should be ready at my exchange point. Alas, I wasn't wearing my watch because I gave it to my brother to use.

An hour or so into the race, I grudgingly got off the cramped school bus I was napping in and took the usual port-a-potty break, lathered on sunblock and removed my sweats. And then I hear my name. Completely oblivious, I look to my right and then to my left and lo, there's my brother rushing up to me cursing..."Where the hell were you? I was screaming your name. Why aren't you ready? You got to go now!"

Shit. I throw my sweats down and start running off forgetting to take my watch from my brother. I have no idea what my pace or time was but I ran through every water stop and passed as many people as I could along the way.

All I know is when I started my leg, estimated marathon finish time would have been 3:58. By the end of my leg, estimated finish time was 3:50.

My team finished 50th overall with a final time of 3:43.

less than a week to Big Sur

The Big Sur race is next Sunday and although I'm only running a small section with my relay team, my leg is the toughest one: 6.9 miles with a 2mile climb. I've ran this leg twice before, once because no one wanted to do it, and the second time because I had energy to burn after running the second leg.

This year, I'm running the relay with my family. Given that I'm the team captain, I was unanimously nominated to run the toughest leg again. It is one of the few times when democracy doesn't work in my favor.

I ran 11m in 1:30 Sunday, will add a set of 8 hill repeats in my neighborhood tomorrow, and a few more shorter runs with hills later this week. Hopefully, I'll be ready by Sunday.