All,
Just wanted to quickly post a note thanking you all for your good humor and sportsmanship. It is not often that the weekend warriors that we attempt to be is willing to give up a training day to participate in such child’s play.
The concept behind this run (and I hope it continues that way) is to try to get the runners grouped more together and give runners who may be mid of the pack a chance to run up front. Our hope is to also make the faster runners work a bit harder (and hopefully blow up) trying to chase down the pack. We began with the formula that big John devised last year, which we implemented again this year soley based upon age and sex. This year we thought it might be fun to add a new wrinkle in terms of adding time penalties by making the runners do a mental or physical challenge while out on the course. Hence many of you came across Mother Hen (thanks Filiesha), who had you doing all kinds of things. From spinning around 15 times, to push up, jumping jacks, naming the seven dwarfs, and even bribing for mercy. While some of you may not have liked it at the time I’m sure you all by now have gotten a chuckle out of it. The bottom line is that you folks actually were able to laugh a bit and have some fun out there today in a beautiful environment. Heck, with Mother Hen out there it kind of reminds me of the Fartlek days from the early 80’s. I was really happy and excited to see all the enthusiasm and good sportsmanship. It’s days like these that puts the fun in running.
I want to take the opportunity to thank several folks. First of all my wife Vanessa, (arguably the best 100 mile crew person a runner could have), for putting this whole thing together for me. This would not have happened without her. Many thanks to Mike Garcia and Patricia Carroll for offering up their services and those of Steph and Joel Jenkins. Without you folks Vanessa and I would have been up a creek. Thanks for coming to our rescue. Filiesha you were a great Mother Hen, runners were calling you Mother alright but the second word they were using was a bit undistinguishable. Cheryl thanks for your concerns and willingness to jump in at the end to make sure this happened. Kudos to Vernon Char for taking my boy Matthew on a real trail run, great job Vernon, he is still beaming. Many thanks to Bob McAllaster who is responsible for keeping the Blog going so all this information can get out to you all. Thanks also to Lisa Dewald for the ono grinds at the finish line. Finally a big mahalo to Joel Jenkins and Don Fallis for helping in an injured runner. Don gave up his hard effort for the day in an attempt to help the fallen runner. From this day forward I will forever call him "Mr. Rooster", for it is not often that a hen ………., oops I need to be more discrete in a public forum.
And finally, thanks to all the runners who actually showed up and took up the challenge. Oh, and hey Matt, Sally was asking where you were?
Aloha,
Huffer