The Commish, Part Five.

Race day for the team 3-miler dawned.  I was the coach for my agency's entry in the ACLI Capital Challenge and I got up early to take Metro to Anacostia Park so I could cheer my team members on, especially the captain, Commissioner McSweeny, who I had solicited to head up the team and been training with since she was new to running a competitive race.  (The last time I actually ran the race was in 2009 when I finished the 3-mile course in 22:54, my slowest time in the series.)

The race started at 8 o'clock in the morning and I exited the Orange Line at the Eastern Market stop and jogged down Pennsylvania Avenue the mile and a half to the race site, running across the bridge over the Anacostia River which afforded me a grand view of the entire 3 mile race course.  It was a simple one and a half mile run down the embankment-hugging roadway entrance to the park, a turn around a cone set in the road, and a return to the start line which now would be the finish line.  (Meb was there that year, fresh off his NYCM win.)

The team members showed up early, all but one.  The commissioner was already there, and Phil, Tom and Greg soon showed up, with only Andy being tardy.  (Where was Andy?  Should we be worried?)

As race time approached, I warmed up with the commissioner so she could get off to a fast start because the way she runs, slow to start but strong to finish, her first mile would be crucial.  She had been worried about her pacing that first mile and since she didn't have a sports watch with a stop-watch timer or pacing-distance calculator, she had hit upon the idea of wearing her I-Phone tunes with a specially selected music selection which as it played out as soon as the race start gun went off, would alert her by the conclusion of the first or maybe second song to the arrival of the seven-minute and thirty-second mark, which was the goal time we had set for her her for the first mile.  (Our team captain in 2009 was Commissioner Harbour.)