Point-to-point races are a pain in the piriformis, with the pain increasingly roughly with the cube of the distance. Mix in a long, intense, and wholly obligatory training session played out on such a course and temporary homelessness, and you're obviously left with the makings of...a late, less-than-entertaining race report.

Friday, March 28: Fly home (or so the story goes) to New Hampshire from Virginia. Establish temporary lodgings. Marvel that it's only late March and the temperature is already well above -20. Do an eleven-miler around various old stomping grounds near the folks' house, then take a resurgent Komen out for his first 36-minute spring fling.

Saturday, March 29, 8:30 a.m.: Picked up by Derek Sawyer, an old high-school rival, as he passes through Concord on his way from Boston to the Gilmanton 5K, held in his former hometown. Exchange spirited, B.S.-laden running chatter relating to past, present and future, leaving no opportunities for sandbagging and displays of false modesty unclaimed. I tell him I'm just running through this one in anticipation of Sunday's 20-mile race. He tells me there's easy money on the line. We warm up together and make last-minute preparations in his mother's house.

10 a.m: Derek jokes that the race director, our good friend Scott Clark, would never send the field off without us. We step outside and notice a large group of people running vigourously in the same general direction about 100 meters up the street, suspiciously close to the starting line. We take after them amid a flurry of very naughty words.

10:05:09: Having threaded my way through the field of 200, I pass through the mile mark, sharing the lead with Fergus Cullen and Rod Viens. They ask where I'd been. I respond briefly that I'd deemed it best to start conservatively and work my way up through the pack.

10:10:12: Running up a very dirty, ugly hill, I pass through the two-mile mark alone in the lead. Fergus and Rod, not far behind, are angry but fading from hearing range. I throw numerous undignified glances behind me as I slog through 300 vertical feet with just enough of a gap to coast to the finish in front.

10:17:05: I claim the cheapest, sleaziest $125 in the history of organized running. A warmdown and feeding session follow. Later, Komen gets in another four miles.

Sunday, March 30, 8 a.m.: After packing many but not quite all of my bags, I am shuttled from Concord by escort number one to the waiting car of escort number two at the Epsom Traffic Circle (these escorts' names are not important, only their vehicles). Escort number two drops me off at Traip Academy in Kittery, Maine, the starting point of the Eastern States 20-Miler. I grab my number and toss my staggering load of "race gear" - actually a weeks' worth of clothes, shoes, and books - onto the baggage bus bound for the finish line in Salisbury, Mass. It's about 40 degrees; the weather forecast - always as reliable in New Engalnd at this time of year as a Martin Franklin race result - has called for steady rain, but here in Kittery there is only a drizzle. I reconnoiter with Oleg Shpyrko, who after the race will be driving me to Dave Dunham's house, where I will spend a week training, making half-stabs at meeting article deadlines, and putting up with a quartet of suspicious cats and a barrage of pleasantly caustic insults.

11 a.m.: The race starts. According to my coach, I'm supposed ro run this in 1:49:30, with splits of 55:30/54:00. I wind up next to Keiron Tumbleton, who's in the midst of a serious comeback and aiming for a sub-2:30:00 at Boston in three weeks. We run fairly even 5:35 pace for the first seven miles, putting me more or less on target, when Keiron suddenly disappears just after an aid station. I look back to see a runner tying his shoe and a very empty, flat coastal road behind him. I look ahead and see the same scenery minus the fallen runner.

11:49:46: I pass the nine-mile mark on Route 1-A, now slightly ahead of my anticipated first-half pace. The rain has picked up some and there is a mild crosswind. I notice that Rye Beach is devoid of sunbathers, although one whimsical idiot is fetching a boogie board from the trunk of his car.

11:55:06: I reach the halfway point of the race after a 5:20 mile. I have a bit of time in the metaphorical bank, but mid-race miles this fast are likely to incur hefty glycogen interest in southernmost New Hampshire within the hour. Armed with this wisdom, I drop a 5:15.

12:05:48: I pass the twelve-mile mark, gaily anticipating a deposit - the downing of some water and a couple of Power Gels at the 12.5-mile aid station. When I pass the table and point at the gels, the young volunteer grins back with practiced confusion and offers a wet but cheery wave. I sully on sans replenishment.

12:16:35: A 5:17 mile brings me to the fourteen-mile mark. I have run the last five miles in 26:49 and moronically assume I will maintain this pace all the way to Falmouth if necessary. I understand that I am traipsing enthusiastically into what erudite people pointing to charts on TV refer to with sly ambiguity as a "weather system."

12:22:05: Three-quarters of the way through, I reflect back on my 2001 effort here, where at this very point a visiting African-Canadian runner named Teles Kalanga turned to me brightly and proclaimed, "I have five miles left to go!" His incalculably deep wisdom still rings true. The next mile passes in 5:28.

12:38:48: Having missed the seventeen-mile mark but sensing a strong tailwind, I anticipate a significantly faster split in spite of throttling down slightly. Having erred in this prediction I let fly with my first naughty word since 10:01 the previous day, blaming the nearby core reactors of the nearby Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant for my perambulatory lassitude, and pick up the pace over the bridge at Hampton Harbor, where, for the first time in state history, there are no skanky biker chicks or their equally hirsute male counterparts wafting about.

Photo courtesy of Jim Rhoades

12:49:46. I finish the race in a colddownpour, 16 seconds (one-quarter of 1%) behind Pfitzy's schedule. I had run 47 seconds faster than in my relative heyday of 2001, when I'd had clear skies and plenty of faster runners to chase. Seconds later I fall victim to the worst post-race photo in, you guessed it, the history of road racing.

Photo "courtesy" of Dave Camire

Given my garb, expression,and overall bearing, one can only imagine that Scooby Doo and gang must have been hot on my trail in the Magic Mystery Machine.

12:59:35: Oleg finishes well under his goal. After several miserable minutes, we find the baggage bus and claim our belongings. After taking a different bus to the Ashworth Hotel, we grab some warm food and wander in circles through various parking lots until we locate Oleg's car. I direct him to Dave's house, but Dave is still stuck in Utah with his snowshoes, most likely owing to another "weather system," and so I spend three hours with my multitude of dufflebags at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts, exacerbating nascent GI "issues" (which always strike after a long, hard run) with copious amounts of coffee.

7:30 I finally get to Dave's and I do not complain. Until

April 9, 11:36 p.m.: now.