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| SemiDaily ∞ Friday, April 24, 2009 |
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 Today the mail was good.
It used to be if you got mail it was good. Before you had bills or a credit history, offers and bills didn't show up in the mail. Basically, if there was mail for you, it was likely a card from a family member. Maybe it even had some money in it.
Then you're no longer a kid and it's bills and junk mail. The advent of email and this whole "internet" fad pretty much killed traditional, personal handwritten letters outright. But it's cool... now it's exciting because if you get email, it's from a friend, and it's just pretty groovy not to have to wait days and days and weeks for a letter from your beloved far across the sea.
Now it's mostly spam. And bills have found their way into the virtual stacks of electronic mail. So firing up the computer is an experience no more pleasant than the long walk to the mailbox on a cold winter's afternoon.
Oh well. But once in a great while...
Today it was a surprise because it's been time out of mind since the race, but a medal showed up from the Shamrock Shuffle 5k. I won my age group with the best 5k time I've run since high school.
There was no method to it... I just sorta got in the middle of a group of runners and went at their pace and let pride keep me from falling back. The ladies' overall winner (who finished two places behind me) was a motivating factor. At one point I was ready to just coast a while and get my breath back, but she was huffing and puffing right behind me. It was a narrow path along the levee in north Lawrence, and she and I were behind a couple runners who had decided to slow down a bit, but they were blocking the path. We got to a point where I could get around them if I picked up the pace a bit. I was about to choose to just run with them when I heard her tell me to "go on." At the time, my head was full of whatever weird thoughts you have when you're fifteen minutes into running as fast as you can and you're getting into that oxygen-deficit state. So I heard encouragement from this lovely young lady, when, in reality it was probably more like "get out of my way!" Oh well. Her medal is cooler. Not as many qualifiers on hers.
My winning my age group wasn't really as indicative of my hard running as it was of how many other fellas who are way faster than me who just decided to stay in bed that morning. Oh well.
Actually, maybe I was just fast enough to get to the winner before he could open his car door... The medal doesn't have my name on it or anything. Could belong to anyone. But, possession is some fraction of something, or so I've heard.
I've seen places where you can just buy trophies and medals and have them engraved with whatever you like. From now on, maybe that's the way to elitism.
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