Five Points of Life Marathon – Gainesville, FL

Gainesville isn’t the bright center of the universe. Nor is it on the rock that is farthest from that bright center. It just… is.

I am once again breaking my rule about visiting places as I run. I’m just sorta checking this race off as a means to an end, a training run that happened to fit my schedule hither and yon. Perhaps if I gave the town more of a chance…

But there isn’t time today. On the plus side, two of my best friends in all of LA-Dom (and indeed the world) are out in Orlando for a press junket this weekend. I’m meeting them for dinner tonight and that’s really the reward for running today. I shall eat like a king. And by that I mean I will probably have fish tacos and thus eat with my hands, forks being SO un-Royal until… when? Didn’t Thomas Beckett introduce it to his sovereign? Did I dream that?

But I digress. Forgive the blind alleys and dead ends that are becoming de rigeur in these posts.

Gainesville’s Five Points of Life isn’t a 99.5% reduced vision of George HW Bush’s presidential points of light. Instead it represents the five ways you can share life with others through the donation of whole blood, apheresis, marrow and blood cells, cord blood and organ & tissue. That’s a worthy cause to be running for; besides, I’d only ever been through Gainesville on my way to some place else. I might as well experience Gainesville and what better way than to see it from the street? (I suppose perhaps visiting sites and eating local cuisine but, hey, baby steps!)

*The University of Florida is home to the Gators and “The Swamp.” These flame spurts appear to be real but as for R.O.U.S.es? I don’t think they exist.*

Mom was good enough to make the ungodly early 2-hour drive with me. We even remembered to bring a cowbell to save her cheering voice.

*Us at the finish line even though we haven’t started yet. 6:45 AM.*

*Mom and her cowbell cheer me into the finish.*

This is an abbreviated review, as dinner awaits. But the short version is the route was mostly flat and my knees, still more scab than skin, held as well as could be expected. Albeit I did break one of the first rules of running: Never do anything new on race day. But my bruised knees needed some relief so I tried glopping on some Real Time Pain Relief before the race.

"Try It, It Works! Smells Great Too!" says the bottle. — *“Try It, It Works! Smells Great Too!” says the bottle.*

The cooling sensation quickly faded and sublimated into a burning the likes of a hot poker held at my patellas for miles and miles. I opted for icing at the end of the race, the first time I think I’ve ever had my knees wrapped post-marathon. The Med Team member should get a night job with UPS — he wrapped with gusto! But I felt better in the end.

*To be fair, the ice was mainly for the fall yesterday. Although maybe running another marathon today wasn’t the smartest idea ever…*

*Us at the for real this time finish line after the race. Snapped after I had my knees iced inside cling wrap.*

I was already an organ donor ... but I still got to take my fake ID pic! — *I was already an organ donor … but I still got to take my fake ID pic!*

So stupid wins the day again. One of these days stupid is going to get me into real trouble. But that day is not today.

Gainesville, I hardly know ya… But at least now I know 26.2 miles of ya.

Sound the trumpets! Unfurl the banners! For tonight, we dine!

***

LATE EDITION POST SCRIPT:

We wound up meeting up at Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge. So we used forks and had zebra domes. Tamela tells me she found out it takes them 3 days to make a batch… a batch being 2400 zebra domes. While I wait for three days to get my order, here’s a shot of me at dinner with three of my favorite people in the whole (Disney) World.