Tar Heel 10 Mile Race Report

Executive Summary:
2nd overall out of 4200 in 51:56. There is 955 feet of elevation gain on the course, which was not particularly fun. But there are only 318 yards of uphill. And only 9.4 x 10^-16 parsecs on the z-axis! If it takes the Millennium Falcon less than 12 parsecs to make the Kessel Run, I assume that the Falcon would complete around a femto-Kessel over that distance/time measure. Therefore, I clearly have no excuses. NERD CALCULUS MOTIVATION.

From a recent charity kickball game. Explains a lot.

Pre-Race:
Life has been crazy. But it feels alright. Baby, thinking about you keeps me up all night? I cannot be sure, it is finals time at the law school so I really don't know what is real and what is a Britney-infused blackout.

Anyway, things have been awesome. I am going to resort to a list, because narratives are for people who understand basic grammar, syntax, conjunctions.

1. Megan ran a 34:11 10,000 meters at the ACC Track Championships, to finish 7th in the conference in her second track race. She is so amazing, and I am incredibly proud of everything she does. This is weird to think about, but as good as she is at running after just picking it up this past year, she is probably better at ten other things. Frozen-yogurt gullet capacity is one of those things.

Faster than shutter speeds and/or speeding bullets. Also, lane 4 is never a great place to run.

2. I was published in the Asheville Citizen-Times on Thursday, with an article on methane leakage from fracking. Unfortunately, editors decide the title, hence the current heading, "Methane Leakage from Fracking A Concern." I still don't know why they didn't accept "Hunger Games Justin Bieber Katniss NFL Kitten Video Boobs."

3. A company I co-founded won the Clean Energy Track of the Duke Start-Up Competition, and the comically oversized check that came with it. If this check was floating in the North Atlantic, there would be enough room for Jack and Rose. (side note: the idea is a fracking fluid tracer using well-specific inert DNA strands. It is pretty far along in testing and looking great! The company name is SafeTNA. Get it...Safety, and DNA. My main contribution to the company has been the name. The Asheville Citizen-Times IS MISSING OUT).

5. Never trust 4s. They look kinda like the battle droids from Star Wars.

NERD CALCULUS refuses to solve 2x2.

Moving on, training has been awesome, with some workouts indicating really good times on the horizon. On Tuesday, my foot began creaking at the first metatarsal. The medical term is creepitus. It sounds like a Greek Island where all the inhabitants spend the day sending text messages with pictures of their junk.

So I decided to use the forced rest as a taper, and emailed the awesome elite athlete coordinator at Tar Heel. A few days of rest, and I showed up to the start line with only a little bit of creeping in the foot. Woohoo! At the start was a Kenyan, Olympic Trials marathoner Marc Jeuland, and 1:07 half-marathoner Brock Baker. Woohoo? Time would tell on the tone of the squeal. AND THEY'RE OFF!

Race:
The stampede began in UNC's football stadium. If I was just a little bit more muscular, I probably would have had a bunch of UNC officials ask if I needed "help with finals."

Brock started quickly, and I bridged up to him around the mile mark (which came back down through the stadium). The foot doth protest, but not too much. Then, some hills began to sap my energy. It was so strange how bad I felt early on. Brock pulled away and I slowed to something approaching a crawl in miles 3-5, where Marc Jeuland came within a couple seconds.

Then, at the halfway point, I decided to drop out. I pulled off, removed my shoe, and yelled "F-WORD!" very loudly in the middle of Chapel Hill. I looked around, and realized I was being ridiculous. The Tina Fey quote about fashion is true about a bunch of things--"Who cares?" After a quick foot massage, I re-shoed and started the second half. Suddenly, I felt really good, and clicked off a 4:47 mile 6 to cut Brock's substantial lead (about a minute) in half.

Interminable blog post intermission.

He floated about 30 seconds away, until we came to the dreaded Laurel Hill. This is the "race within a race", with a timing mat on the bottom, and at the top, 200 vertical feet later. In retrospect, I think I gave the hill a bit too much respect, though had cut down Brock's lead to 15 seconds at the top. That gap held to the finish, where we crossed under the previous course record (the clock said 52:25, but the results tent said 51:56. My guess is the former, but I will stick with wishful thinking).

All-in-all, it was tons of fun, and the first time I have ever negative splitted anything (Not that I meant to, if I was trying to do that, I would have failed miserably). Also, I am a few hundred dollars richer! By my mental NERD CALCULUS, Megan and I can now make 50 extra trips to the local frozen yogurt place. Soooooo much better than whatever is at the end of a Kessel Run.

Thanks so much for reading, and for everything else! My foot currently looks like a bruised banana, which is okay because my dad says those are the best. Granted, my dad also often says that the smell in the car is not him, but we all know the truth. All I'm saying is that you better roll down the windows after the Roche house buys a discounted bag of brown bananas. 

Thanks again, hope things are amazing!!