You will always be a winner, Jerry - you might have been the first to cross this finish line, but you were a presence and an awesome guy and such an inspiration through it all. Your spirit never faltered even when ours did. You made an impression on many as shown by the posts and following on your FB page. The humor, jokes, stories, etc. that were shared painted a wonderful picture of you and showed how much you were loved. May you never wear out those running shoes again and may you run many a mile with all of us whilst cheering us on from the heavens. I'll never forget the day we ran at the river and how you made me laugh when you said that I'd killed you running that fast! That would never have brought you down as you loved every minute of my trying to get you going. We've always got your back and we will miss you. RIP, Jerry. I'm one of the fortunate ones that got to share some time on earth with you.
Secondly, my Flora Mini Marathon Recap. This race used to be a real "10K race". One where elites were invited and paid, but alas, like many races over the years it has evolved into one of participation and has become an incredibly large (over 40,000 participants) event designed to raise money for over 25 different charities all over Ireland. Women came in buses and matching t-shirts supporting their causes and a great deal of Euros were raised for these causes. In that respect, I'm glad that I wore my "Jerry" bib for the race as I felt like I was supporting a cause (and because we all had run (myself virtually) a 10K "Go Gray in May" for brain tumor research too. I'm cursing myself though as I really didn't have a great time during the race.
I didn't realize that it had really become a charity race and I expected that since I had to submit a time that the front corals would be for running. Well, they were to an extent. The logistics were just not meant for a "race" unless you were in the "elite" (sub-45 min coral). I should have figured all of this out when I saw a) that the race started at 2 PM, b) you had to be in your coral by 1:15 PM; c) there was no race shirt. The course was also changed from previous years and the first water stop which should have been around 3K, was actually placed on the wrong (old course) street. The day had started off in the high 50s with rain showers, but it had warmed up to 65F by race time with humidity around 77% - so it was warm (to me) and I needed water by 3K! I felt like I just could not get into rhythm so around 2 miles in as we were climbing the first of many long, but not real steep inclines that I was just going for the sub-50 time. I dialed it back, dropped the heart rate to a hard effort, and just hung on to finish. At the finish, there was a clock (the only one on the course) and they gave you a pretty nice medal - but there were only small cups of water and no food at all. I later saw many of the participants at various pubs and fast food restaurants in the city as this was a happening!
Results showed that I came in 264th overall out of over 40,000 participants, but who knows what that really means as stats are not kept for age groups, etc. I do know that I was the fastest "Keane" in the event.
I felt bad afterwards that I was so discouraged with the event as I thought it was more of a race especially since I found out later than Jerry passed that afternoon. Maybe that was why it was such a struggle for me - who knows.
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