The Team

We woke up yesterday morning to the sound of screaming. Possibilities raced through my mind. Political protest? Horrible car accident? The rapture? I stumbled into the living room and laid out on the floor (my back has been killing me since I literally spent five hour crammed in a closet-sized space,hunched over a fried DLP light engine, with two other techies) and waited for Mandy. She came into the room and gave me a few stretching suggestions while the tone and ferocity of the screaming rose a few decibels. As I stretched my horribly out-of-shape body, Mandy looked out the window and yelled, "It's a race! There are supporters on the corners cheering the runners on!" I groaned and got up to look out the window at all of the runners. There they were, hundreds of racers plowing through the cool October drizzle, cheering and having, what seemed to be, a good time.

Later, as breakfast was prepared, the conversation kept coming around to running and wanting to get back in shape again (mostly me). And not some flabby shape, a nice, taut, visually pleasing shape. An idea is starting to form. It's very nebulous right now, but I hope it will coalesce into something concrete by, oh, around next May.

So, here's the idea. We're looking for feedback, ideas, and participants. Please comment, email, or call.

We'd like to get a group of people interesting in running (not walking) the Riverbank Run in Grand Rapids May '08. We want to create a team name, t-shirts, running support, playlist ideas, etc. The trick to doing this is to get other people interested and training. The other thing Mandy and I need is a liaison in Grand Rapids, or at least closer than an 18 hour drive, who can coordinate efforts there. Let us know soon.

If I'm going to run, anyone can do it. A couple years back I went from not being able to to run a mile, to running two 5Ks with respectable times. We have six months to get prepared. If that's enough time for people to recover from massive back injuries, it should be enough for us. We need ideas for a team name, t-shirt designs, playlist ideas, where and how to hold the necessary after race gathering, etc.

The sooner we get started the better prepared we will be. We still plan on being back in GR around Thanksgiving time, and hopefully we can plan an hour or two to meet with those of you who would like to join in on the fun!

Go speed racer, go!

This weekend, Mandy competed in her third River Bank Run 5K in Grand Rapids. She placed seven in her class and did a bang-up job. Despite being slightly injured she pulled off a respectable 10 minute per mile average. Angie also competed and did an amazing job. Congrats to all!

I can say I was little jealous to see everyone running and standing at the sidelines as I had the first year. I am going to run the Buck Creek Run in July, so keep an eye on the obituaries that week.

Here's a little video I shot of Angie and Mandy running past the turn just before the 2 mile mark. Sadly, I was only able to capture a few seconds for each person, so I padded the video with a little extra content to make it a watchable length. Even now, it's still pretty unwatchable. Please forgive me.

(Sad, sad little video camera.)