Winter Trail Run Series 15K Report - January 23, 2010

G'day Mateys, 

Well, well, well what a week it was, earthquakes overseas, landslides, rain, snow and I ended up in the Emergency Room in Woodbridge… more on that later.  It was another Magic day up at Blue Jay, feel sorry for the ones that were registered who couldn’t make it.  For those newbies who ran our trails for the first time, you did good guys, of course, the old trail farts took it in their stride.  What rocks!  On the Friday, Steve and I took off to mark the trail in rain, hail and freezing conditions. We ended up really cold and very wet.  Not a pretty site I might add.  But the life of an RD doesn’t improve with age or experience, but sitting having my evening wine with a smile on my face made it all worth the effort.  The 2 dickheads who didn’t think they had to pay will probably not return, one hopes.

My other problem was my official race day help, Bill and Sandy were snowed in up at Crestline… lame excuse I thought!  But the good news is they will return for the 18K.  A last minute call for help worked out fine, LT was at Blue Jay 5 minutes after I pulled in… followed by more help.  I am a lucky bloke.  So the stage was set.  The sun came out, although it was chilly, several runners seemed to be well protected, others were ready for a nice day on the trails.  My last minute instructions were accepted and the 120 or so happy faces took off for the very accurate 9.3 miles!  My usual trip out about a mile and a half to re-route the course for the return from Sugar Loaf worked fine except for a pain in my lower tummy climbing back up the hill.  I also sweated, wearing my jeans is not for the trails, but hey - we move forward. 

I had only just returned to the finish line when big John Clark came thundering across the line!  Was I lucky to just beat him.  What a good man, he said he was worried about the trail studs, but managed to use his up-hill speed to separate himself from a few trail regular racers.  What is up-hill speed to a mere mortal! Smiling Dean Dobberteen strode in second just over a minute back, followed by birthday boy Kevin Gillotti.  Ben Hian was only seconds behind Kevin to take 4^th overall.  Actually the first 10 finishers were only 10 minutes apart, on a course that took a lot of negotiating.  Lovely Alison Wenster won the women’s division and came in 14^th overall.  She will be back I hope.  Local girl Stephanie Grant took second, unfortunately had to leave, so I missed out on one hug.  Another Stephanie…. Kinley came in third and was real happy to be home in one piece. 

Special birthday wishes to 10 year old Sierra Barton… I think her future is secure in our sport.  Her family don’t do a bad job, including her 70 year old & still trail running grandpops.  Oh yes, we had a couple of runners with minor injuries, but nothing serious…. I think my little problem was greater! Finally LT got the award winners together with the help of Theresa and me good mate Reuben.  Love it when runners stay around and support all the award winners… maybe it is my magic raffle!  My long time mate Bob and manager of “A Snails Pace” helped me with the awards, we do appreciate there involvement and not to forget my mate Mike at E-Gel of course.  One hopes everyone got something, even if it was a laugh.  I very much appreciate your support at the races and for putting up with some of my silliness on stage.  The camaraderie we have built up over the last 2 decades is magic and I notice the first timers seem to settle in with the high energy straight away.  We are family… who sang that?

There are so many personal stories I get to hear about on race day, hard to share them all, but seeing a mountain lion was Nicole McDermott’s excitement for the day. Oh yes they are out there.  Must thank me FS mate Virgil, seems all the money he takes in, including parking tickets, is well spent and more updates to Blue Jay are in the works.  He appreciates us being there, trust me… hasn’t given me a ticket yet!  Before I finish off I did have to go get checked out, seems I have a slight hernia that if not looked after could need surgery.  No humping the Doc said… I said, what’s that!  So, I will be available on the Feb 6^th to cause more havoc in Blue Jay.  Please get your names on the entry list now, we are getting close to filling up our quota.  Must mention my SJT50K on March 6^th, then 3 weeks later Steve has his Old Goats 50, one tough 50 miler.   Enjoy your running and I will see you later, and thanks. 

TTFN for now, be good to each other.  Love Big BAZ

             EMail missing info & corrections to: DMalewicki@cox.net. 

 Charles Borlase was out on the 15K course with his big fancy camera again! 
He has graciously posted all of his top quality photos of the 15K runners on his gallery:
www.borlase.com/wtrs_2010/15k
Free - Free
There are 25 photos per page.  Click on any thumbnail you like to enlarge and then RIGHT CLICK and select SAVE AS to capture the full size version on your computer.  These will print out as nice 8 by 10's.  Charles plans to be out for the next couple WTRS races.  Be sure to yell thanks AND smile! 
(These next 4 photos were taken by Charles.)

Stephanie Kinley age 39 was 3rd overall female in 1:31:44.	Sean Fenner age 39 (1:35:18) followed by ? & Peter Susic age 41 (1:33:25).
? followed by 10 year old Sierra Barton (1:54:10)and Mom Michelle (1:54:11).	Hans Duncan age 57 (2:03:14) having another fun day on the trails.