Visualizing OK ’til race turns into reality

After enduring three weeks of comments, suggestions and insults, I am here today to reassure you that I did not, in fact, drop dead during the third running of the Beach to Beacon road race in early August.

And in an effort to stop the gossip once and for all, I’d like to clear up some misconceptions:

1) Yes, I did show up, even though they give you your T-shirt the day before the event and you’re not legally bound to actually participate after that. 2) No, I am not ashamed that my 65-year-old father, who runs on one good leg and one surgically fused ankle, trounced me. 3) And yes, I did finish … yesterday.

Just kidding.

This year, in addition to tapering for nearly the entire summer, I decided to try my hand at “visualization.”

We used to call it “dreaming.” Things have changed. Now it’s a real training tool.

It works like this: Say you’re a sleek, slender runner. You picture yourself running the race of your life. You picture yourself as a sleek, slender running beast. A leopard, maybe. Or a cheetah.

Me? Since I’m neither sleek nor slender, I chose to visualize myself as a bear. A big, hungry, brown bear. A lumbering, jogging bear. Chasing honey. And cheetahs.

It was a natural for me, actually. My ex-girlfriend always told me I looked a lot like a bear, after all. I always liked that, since I thought she really liked bears, and she was saying it because I was **cute** like a bear.

Then she went and traded me in for a cheetah. But that’s another story.

Back to the race.

Did I mention how well organized this race is?

They tell you where to park. They tell you where to stretch. They tell you where to go to the bathroom (I’m sure you’re expecting a cheap line here about bears and woods, but you’re not going to get it).

They even tell you where to start.

You might think it’s a simple process, this starting thing. Stand at the line. Wait for the gun. Commence to puffing and panting. Repeat as necessary.

It’s more difficult than that. Signs tell the fast runners to go to the front of the pack. Signs tell the slower runners to head to the middle of the pack.

I couldn’t find a sign that referred to me, so I went way, way back and stood beside the portable toilets with the rest of the bears.

It was pretty nice back there, actually. We had shade and plenty of room to spread out, and nobody tried to trample us when the gun went off. Not that we could hear the gun go off from way back there.

Which leads to another issue I’d like to clear up. You may have seen my finishing time and thought that I was surprisingly slow, even for a guy who was trying to run like a bear.

You’re wrong. And according to my calculations, I deserve some kind of prize.

Figure this: Not only did I considerately give all 3,500 other runners a head start they didn’t need (call me Mr. Congeniality), I also ran several hundred yards farther than everybody else just to get from the toilets to the **official** starting line.

That means I ran both farther and for a longer time than nearly anybody else in the race. That’s gotta count for something. A few bucks from the prize pool isn’t too much to expect, I figure.

That will be cool. In fact, I’ve already visualized myself spending my prize money:

On new running shoes I’ll wear while I dream about training for next year’s race.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter.