This is a before and after kind of story.

I know many of you can not believe your eyes, but these are actual unretouched photos of myself from around the turn of the century and then last March at the Bay to Bay.

When I began to put this blog together yesterday I had an idea about my personal evolution and how much running has been a catalyst to my evolution on every plane - physical, mental, spiritual. But I just got back from running the Clearwater Halfathon, which is a half marathon, or 13.1 miles in everyday terms. And the rhythm of my early concept has ebbed as the tide of my latest run has rushed the shores of my mind. So I'm gonna write about that.

I got up around 5:30 this morning, Sunday, that's right kids - 5:30 AM! A quick hot shower to loosen my muscles, a bowl of oatmeal for energy, a couple of cups o' java for the caffeine boost, a good long pull off my gatorade for the electrolytes and carbs, load up the MP with Beach Boys (GoodVibrations baby) and Beatles and I'm on my way by 6:30. The race starts at 7:35am in Coachmen's park in downtown Clearwater which is about a 40 minute drive. I mostly have the roads to myself as my thoughts wander aimlessly. I feel good, I am happy. Some of you, maybe most of you, probably don't get that but for me there is something very magical and soulful about the hour just before dawn, the promise of a new day, and the feeling that life is always unfolding it's wonders and mysteries to us one day at a time.

If you've never been to the starting area, which most often is also the finishing area, for one of these things, it truly is a sight. Here we are, several hundred of us, gathered in the park as the sky starts to do it's amazing transformation from night to day. We have gathered to celebrate life, to celebrate the physical, to say "Damn, it's good to be alive and kickin'!" We are mostly strangers and yet we know each other because we are one but we're not the same. We are young and not so young, we are tall, short, ripped, not so ripped - we are a slice of humanity. One of the most interesting aspects are the lines for the port-o-lets where we congregate to take care of last minute pre-race business and chat each other up. I talk for a few minutes to the beautiful woman behind me who tells me she lives in Belair and, judging from the size of the rock on her finger, I would imagine very happily married.

We start and I try and find my rhythm (there it is again!?) early. Paul is tellin' me, "Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool By making his world a little colder". Sing it brother. I've told myself that I'm gonna take it easy and not try to set a personal best for this distance which I have run before, so I go easy. This race is unique for around here because it crosses the Memorial Causeway to Clearwater beach and then crosses the bridge from the beach to Sand Key before turning around and coming back over both bridges. Here in Florida we don't get hills and these bridges qualify as some pretty serious hill climbs, both rising over 70ft. I take it easy up the first one and get to the top where the views are spectacularly tinted in the glow of the rising sun. Down the other side I can't help but pick up speed, feelin' it. We head into Clearwater beach where the early rising tourists gawk and point and smile. We head south and up and over the bridge to Sand Key, more spectacular views, I think, "Damn, I am feelin' good and strong this morning". We head into sand key park and loop the place before heading back out and south on Gulf Blvd. I'm now at about the halfway point and I glance at my watch and see that I'm am making pretty good time. "Just relax", is my mantra. I have a tendency to push too early and bonk too soon. We turn around and start heading north, back the way we came from. The course is essentially an out and back except we don't go through the park on the way back. Bridge climb three goes well. I am now slowly but surely starting to pass alot of the folks who passed me early on. This is almost always case. As long as I start easy and let these rabbits hop, I usually start reelin' them in toward the later stages.

We make the turn from the beach back toward the mainland and right into a very stiff headwind. It pushes on us so hard it feels like I'm running in place. I put my head down, give a tug on my hat brim, and soldier on, pick 'em up and put 'em down. Some folks are starting to walk at this point, the wind is very discouraging. The final bridge climb is sheer determination. My body is sending stop and walk signals to my brain and I have to override them, veto them, "We'll be walkin soon enough", I tell the troops. Besides, the time on my watch tells me that if I make a good hard push here, I'm gonna be flirtin' with my best time in spite of my earlier ideas, so I pick it up. Up to the top of the bridge and now a blessed descent. I can see other runners ahead and where they are exiting the bridge, but I'm not sure how far from there to the finish. I don't want to kick it too soon. As I am exiting the bridge, a woman, who is in kick mode, passes me. "I don't think so.", I says to myself. And just like the Beastie Boys at the start of "You gotta fight for your right to party", I KICK IT. My body has got the burst, I pass her back pretty easily, but where is the finish? I can't go like this too far, and then, I see it a couple of hundred yards ahead, and now I double KICK IT, and I cross at 1:47:19, or about 11 seconds faster than my best at that distance. Yahoo!

I can't describe the high I get out of this in a way that will do it justice. The only way anyone truly understands it is to experience it for themselves. It often brings tears of joy to my eyes at the end of a race.

A friend of mine recently asked me, "If it's so much fun, why don't I ever see the runners smilin'? They're always grimacing."

"You weren't at the finish line, were you?", I responded. "You'll see lots of smiles at the finish line". I hang around for about an hour while me and my fellow runners party down on bagels, oranges, bananas, water, and gatorade. I know I'm nowhere near earning an age group award so I don't stick around for those, although lots of times I do just to see the people who do win them. That's the beauty of running, there is only one person I am trying to do better than, and that person is an earlier incarnation of myself.