The Dark Side Of Expos

Posted

Maybe I wasn’t in the mood. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed with the volume of people and noise. But I was in a bit of a snit as I went through the Star Wars Half Marathon (Dark Side) Expo this afternoon. They had opened at 10 AM and I was there around 12:30/1 o’clock. […]

Camera Ready

Posted

For some reason, I’ve gotten into the notion of costume running for shorter distances. I blame that turkey costume for the Turkey Trot 5K last year. It was so surprisingly reasonably priced over at Amazon… and with Amazon Prime it was here so quickly… They say people with Amazon Prime spend more money at Amazon […]

Playing the Logistics Percentages

Posted

C-3PO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1. Han Solo: Never tell me the odds. I’m probably a minor disappointment to Han Solo. I’m playing the odds in my logistics without knowing the odds but unfortunately I’m getting cocky. After successfully avoiding the rain in St Louis, I’m […]

GO! St. Louis Marathon

Posted

May the odds ever be in my favor. This morning I woke up, still alive after a weird night in a crappy potentially crack den hotel. And I checked my phone for the forecast. Rain seemed highly likely in the back half of the marathon. I’ve often said to friends about training runs on the […]

Dis-Patches From The Air and Road

Posted

It’s a double marathon weekend – the Andrew Jackson Marathon on Saturday and the St Louis Marathon on Sunday. Today’s early morning flight to STL had been designed to maximize sightseeing – I’d start in Missouri, drive out to Jackson, TN, for tomorrow’s race then come back to run and fly out on Sunday. But […]

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

Posted

0718 hours. And so here I stand. Stretching, pacing, jibber-jabbering and just generally killing time before the starting gun/shout/air horn/lighting of a cigarette. (That last one is only for the Barkley Marathons, a race I’m 99.99998% sure I will never do.) Today isn’t a countdown to the start of a marathon though. No, today’s 24 […]

Dawn of Illness

Posted

Ugh. Some time yesterday I felt my throat closing in on me and I assumed it was just allergies. There’s a fine yellow dusting of pollen covering the area, from automobiles to zebra patterned porch chair cushions. And yet last night, the throat got scratchier and descended through the circles of hell to reach a […]

A College Adjacent Town

Posted

I’ve made a horrible mistake. That’s what I realized as I followed a woman running who had turned left at the T-intersection. I don’t think this when I make the turn, though. No, no. It’s the second loop of the 2-loop Not-So-Normal Half Marathon in Carrboro, NC. We’re running through neighborhoods in the small town […]