2010 Solstice

I would like to thank everyone for bringing delicious baked goods. I plan on living off of them for the next week or so, except for the leftover bananas (or anything with tree nuts since it would be my final meal, and if I am to have a final meal and am allowed a choice of what it shall be, it would most likely involve Lark's tongues and Rhinoceros beetle horns garnished by silver moonbeams and extract of widow's tears). It was a pleasure to yet again do surprisingly little work and still be congratulated as being an excellent race director. I love getting praise for things I have not really earned. Our runners today were an excellent bunch, and not one of them swore at me for forgetting their names every single loop (that includes people I have known for years. Thanks for your patience, one and all. I will most surely have all names memorised within the next decade, as long as you all do me the courtesy of not aging during that time. Break this single rule and all is lost). There were some extremely fast runners today, and I personally witnessed some truly gutsy performances today which made the tiny amount of effort I put into the race entirely worth it. Plans are already under way for another Vernal Equinox Edition (well, I am not actually planning at this time, but I am planning on trying to plan, and that ain't half bad).

Thanks to my volunteer Chris Martin, who earned his volunteer hours for his first 100 mile trail race. Best of luck to you, man! Hope your race is a sucessful one! I'll be rooting for you almost the entire way (except for mile 67, with which I am not on speaking terms after The Incident Which Must Not Be Spoken Of). Run strong!

Thanks to my other volunteers who just kind of hung around so they could hear my voice go continuously more and more hoarse as the day went by. I am very pleased that my pain and suffering provided you with amusement. Perhaps for the next race I could fire a cannonball into my gut (it will be in slow motion, naturally. I figure the videos of such performances are always in slow motion because it hurts less that way. I'll let you know if that is true or just another old wives' tale (who are these old wives, anyway? And why if they are getting closer and closer to my age are they called old wives? They seem pretty young and vivacious to me. Matter of fact, every year they just seem younger and prettier, but perhaps that is just some form of temporal mirage or some other such nonexistant phenomenon I use to deny the inevitable truth of biological reality)).

I can only hope that a good time was had by all. Then again, it is difficult to judge when the group of people surrounding you think that running miles and miles and miles in the freezing cold is the best possible way to spend a Saturday. Why do we think that? How could such a thing be? What is our problem, anyway? My money is on some kind of defective reverse transcriptase eukaryotic neurotransmitter polymerase activity, but that just makes me sound like I am jumping on the ole' "positive sense single stranded RNA Class VI retrovirus" bandwagon, and how sick are we all of hearing about that? Can't even hang around at the water cooler at work anymore without someone making a snide retrotransposon comment, and I never thought in my life that I would become "That Guy", and I apologize for my folly. I'm just a Biology fool, I reckon. Be patient with me- I am a work not really in progress.

See you all next year! (Unless this write-up has scared you off. If it has, no one will ever blame you. If it has not, perhaps a visit to the Mental Health Center is in order. Just saying. See you there!).

Link to some pictures I just happened to take at various times during the race: http://picasaweb.google.com/slatour0694/FallFellsUltra2010#

Link to a book I just happened to write (copies of which I brought to the race and then entirely neglected to promote to anyone): http://www.amazon.com/Clydesdales-Tale-How-Trained-Vermont/dp/1453882669/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1