How's this for a survey question?

The lovely folks from the Army Ten-Miler sent a link to a survey for us finishers to complete, if we wanted to. Here's the first question:

I guess they thought we all might still be a bit addled from the heat.

My experience was, generally, quite good. Race organizers can't control the weather. Maybe Al Gore could work a little harder on that before next year's fall races?

One of the female runners I met in DC is a little older than I am, and quite a bit more experienced. I talked with her yesterday and they had run out of water by the time she got to the five-mile mark. So I was very lucky that fluids were available to me the entire route.

For those of you who haven't registered for a race before, you have to put down a predicted finish time. Your time determines where you are in the starting corrals – slower runners start later, and I was in the last corral. It seems logical to put down a faster time, whether you can meet it or not. Of course, that would be lying. It didn't occur to me to do that when I registered, as I'm not a liar, but if it meant I would cross the starting line sooner – and thus be assured of having fluids available … hmmmm.

At any rate, spectators stepped up and offered her water and trail mix; I've read elsewhere that Chicago spectators also saved the day for some of the LaSalle runners.

Nearly everyone staying at our hotel was in the race. The civilian runners, all apparently from the same club, were kinda snooty. I'm sure they thought the chubby old lady was the spectator and my husband, who is pretty lean, was the runner. Even though I was wearing my Country Music Marathon shirt! But the military runners were, without fail, enthusiastic, encouraging, polite, enthusiastic, interested, interesting, and did I mention enthusiastic? The volunteers, many of them military as well, were handing out high-fives and hoooahs all along the route.

I think what got me through it in somewhat good shape was thinking of it as a training run, not a race. All I wanted to do was finish and add one more star to my training chart. I ran it about a minute slower than my race pace, which is fine with me. Cooler weather, or cloud cover, or even a breeze would have helped, but hey – it is what it is, and it's over!

And it's good to be back. I'll update you on the antidepressants tomorrow.