Wow! For the second time this year, I got one of my funny running memoirs printed front and center in “The Lighter Side” section of Colorado Runner. This one is from a collection of stories about “My Craziest Races”:
At age 47, I was feeling pretty good about myself by qualifying for the A wave of the Boulder Boulder 10K. Two miles into the race I was running comfortable 6:05 minute miles when I passed a college age guy who was JUGGLING TENNIS BALLS AS HE RAN! It totally burst my bubble and I suddenly realized how one person’s race pace is another person’s easy clip. I managed to stay ahead of him for the rest of the race, and the high point of the day for me was beating the legendary Bill Rodgers who finished a minute and a half behind me. I don’t know how Bill did against the tennis ball guy.
And I just discovered a really cool database for runners that allows you, with the click of a button, to compile a list of all your race results over that past few decades. Athlinks is perfect for the running geek who wants to instantly calculate the average time of his or her marathons, half marathons, 10Ks or whatever. Check it out!
Here’s a nice shot Lori took at last month’s Mt. Evans Ascent. It’s a 14.5 mile race that starts at 10,600 ft. elevation and finishes at 14,264 ft. The weather was perfect and I felt pretty strong considering the high elevation. I’m the runner in the yellow shirt:
We have a local guy in the MD-DC-VA area who juggles when he runs. My first race after getting into running he beat me. Never again. I didn’t even really feel bad for being happy when he dropped the balls.
He was also at the Rockville Twilight 8k last week where I heard him referred to as the ‘joggeler’. I have since adopted that name for all jogglers going forward.