Monday, September 21, 2009

The Throne Room

Following this past Saturday's State Road Race, I began preparing for the Omaha Corporate Cup 10K.

Preparation entailed replacing the toilet in my house. With a hairline crack in its holding tank that was progressively leaking more water, the repair wasn't critical. Yet. But since shit happens, the commode needed to be replaced before it would happen.

So here's how it went down. After completely removing the damaged toilet, I cleaned the soiled black and tan mottled wax ring from the flange while a nauseating sewer gas permeated the bathroom. Next came the daunting task of squatting the replacement porcelain bowl into the correct position. Threading those collar bolts through the mount holes without spoiling the new wax ring wasn't easy. But after two failed attempts and a hearty bout of cussing (sorry neighbors!) , I finally got it right. All that on road-race fatigued legs. Boy, was I was relieved to finally drop that load.

The toilet, that is.

Needless to say, I wasn't expecting much on Sunday. But you know, it's often in those times when you're pleasantly surprised by the results: I ran a personal best 10K at 35:33.

For the bicycle enthusiasts following this blog, cycling conditioning gave me the confidence to attack three times in the sixth mile, dropping two runners while producing my best mile split (5:34) of the race. Last year, it was bridging; this year the attack. Thanks to all you who taught me how to suffer through that valuable lesson.

Splits: 5:38, 5:42, 5:50, 5:47, 5:48, 5:34, 1:14 (5:43 avg)
Official Results

After the battle had ended and its banners were neatly folded and stored away, I celebrated the spoils of victory quietly -- indeed peacefully -- by sitting upon my newly installed throne.

Ah, now that's Wholesome Steel-Cut Goodness!

8 comments:

  1. Entertaining as always. But you need to pick up the pace on that 10k.

    See!

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  2. Shameless bragging aside, good job on that run. I can't remember the last time I ran a sub sub 7:00 mile, let alone 6 sub 6:00 miles in a row.

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  3. Nice throne. You'll be spending a lot of time ruling from there if you eat too many bowls of warm oatmeal. It's all good.

    I don't know much about running, but that sounds crazy fast. I think I did a 5k once in the time it took you to do the 10k.

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  4. real men went and ate breakfast :D j/k i hope you were making fun of ryan as he was huffing on your way back.... nice throne by the way

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  5. Nice job on the weekend...great run. I was thinking sometime we need to do a real mans "tri". Start with mowing the lawn, Swim, Bike, Change out the water heater or toliet, and finish with a 10K. Yep.

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  6. what's the big dang deal? I broke 40 minutes in a 10k once.....when Reagan was President... @ 39:43. So what if you were 5+minutes faster and 20 years older than I was...never to see sub 40 again.

    5+ minutes means I was almost a mile back..... crap that's fast.

    Nice commode also

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  7. Thanks to all for the comments.

    Indeed, I'm satisfied with the results.

    That goes for the race as well.

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