What a difference four months makes! Above shot was taken today after my 6-mile mountain-bike leg which followed teammate John Clark's 5.5-mile run in the Bellingham Traverse. (We were on one of the Action for Africa teams.) Below shot was taken just over four months ago shortly after Johnny Boy and I had broken our collar bones in separate incidents. (That, of course, was about six months after we had a tree fall on us when we were mountain biking but that's a whole other story.) Anyway, sure feels good to be racing together again. The Hendrix shirt, by the way, is my tribute to one of my all-time faves, who died 40 years ago today.
The Traverse is a pretty low-key affair (not at all like the corporate machine that is Ski to Sea), and the hope seems to be that it will all just run itself. We heard many tales of runners getting lost and mountain bikers missing turns and doing only one loop when they should've done two, etc. Parts of the course were apparently sabatoged the night before. But the race doesn't start 'til 12:30 p.m. so wouldn't that give course marshalls plenty of time to ensure that things are in order? Or is that just my New Jersey-bred contrariness coming out?
(See comment below from race director Todd Elsworth; I guess it was my Jersey contrariness.)
No matter. I had fun and got to spend a great afternoon with a super group of guys. And Rick Lingbloom too.
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| Me, Pat, Rick (buff and burly), Nick, John. |
Below photo from Jon Brunk Photo.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Glad to hear that you were able to make it out. I would like to set the record straight- the course was reset and sabotaged the day of the race. We did everything in our power to get it reset and maintain it during the race. We hope you had fun
Todd Elsworth, Race Director.