Two more notes about yesterday's race and the sacrifices that I subjected myself to on its behalf.

First, about two months ago I decided that one of the things I needed to do to run faster was to lose a few pounds. I wanted to get down to 150 pounds for the race. I didn't do anything drastic for the diet, but I cut out my nightly beer with dinner (most nights), my nightly dessert (unless we had something really tasty in the house) and my afternoon snacks (some times). I hoped that would get me to my goal, because I sure as hell wasn't going to try any harder than that.

I knew I'd need to eat well on Saturday in preparation for the race though, so I decided that my diet would end on Friday. I stepped on the scale that night before bed and the scale read.... 150.2 pounds.

Note that we've got some wacky digital scale that isn't very fine-grained. It'll oscillate wildly between numbers like 152.2 and 153.6 as though those two numbers were consecutive. Maybe my scale was made on a planet where the aliens have 14 fingers. Anyway, the point is I might be a little below 150 or a little above, but 150.2 is the closest my stupid scale will show me. I'm going to call victory on the first diet of my life.

Secondly, one of the problems that many people have in races is that they'll go out too fast. They'll run the first part of the race too quickly and leave themselves (and the people they're pacing) exhausted for the second half. So, what's a good strategy to ensure that you don't feel too peppy at the starting line?

Booze!

Hank and I had a date night on Saturday night, and we kicked it off by hitting the bar at the French restaurant in our neighborhood. I had some swanky cocktail named a "Savoy" and then my first drink of absinthe.

The absinthe was really cool. The bartender did some wacky presentation where she burned a sugar cube on top of the drink and then poured in the liquid from the burning sugar. The drink was licorishy and yummy.

Absinthe has become a hip drink here in San Francisco. I believe the traditional consumption involves wearing all black and reading poetry while drinking it, but I substituted for those things with khakis and fart jokes. I guess I'm not a strict traditionalist.

I am, however, committed to my pacing goals, willing to both drink absinthe and diet lazily in pursuit of those goals. There are 9 weeks left until Portland and I'll drink as many cocktails as it takes to get there.