And some came running.

I went to the Fort Lauderdale Corporate Challenge 5K Run this past Thursday (I'm trying to make an effort to generate "real time" blog entries, but time is always limited, and, so, here I am playing catch-up with my own online enterprise. Sigh.). Anyway, it was a nice night (typical for southern Florida this time of year) and a chance to traverse and linger in some places I don't usually get to. The number of participants was smaller than in the past two years, but I'm guessing that probably reflects the economic downturn of the past year. The race itself has the competitive, "seeded", runners staged in the front of the field, and the "hoi polloi" (which includes your humble correspondent) in the rear. For myself, the days of running a six minute mile across a 5K course are somewhere behind and north of here.

I spent the two days after the race dealing (or, better yet, suffering through) with the side effects of an acute bout of Achilles tendonitis (which infuriates J, who sees a refusal to deal with a problem which should be fixed; I, of course, see only reminders of an inevitable decline which concludes with nothing left to decline). More curious yet, I suspected that might be the most concrete outcome of the evening and still found it hard to relinquish my performance, if not my participation. So I hung out amid the corporate tents, talked with some coworkers about things other than work, broke some bread (over veggie lasagna), and covered 3.1 miles in about 33 minutes.

Still, for that evening, I was in a semitropical, semiurban outpost with fountains framing the high rise condominiums of the Fort Lauderdale skyline.  My old sneakers were laced up and my running shorts were on.  There are some moments it's just good to be there, in that moment.  This was one of those times.

Some companies run as teams with their team members sporting shirts with corporate colors or logos.  They line up with everybody else under the city parking garage and wait for the starter's gun to go off.

And when it does, the seeded runners burst forward to hopefully establish some personal best record for themselves.  The remainder of the pack slowly surges forward, first walking, and finally passing beneath the balloon festooned starting gate.

Eventually, the pack breaks up enough for us to all find our personal pace, and our associated "personal best".  I've come to prefer starting behind and coming forward, rather than starting with an unobjective bravado and falling back in exhaustion.  I find my place in this river of middle class, middle aged denizens of the corporate woods and look for the ocean with them.

Eventually we finish, congratulate each other, inquire after finish times, bust chops, and watch the sun set overhead behind the towers fencing the park we're gathered in.  I hope the ankle supports I'm wearing might spare me any real discomfort in the next days, but time and circumstances have moved on, as has that day.