Month: October 2016

Sean is leaving Leesburg.  For real.  2016 really is the year of low probability events.

Are we thrilled that Sean’s going to wake up every morning with a view of the Rockies?  That he’ll never miss a day of fresh powder for the rest of his life?  That he’ll live in a town where he can walk to a coffee shop.  Or a bar.  Or, hell’s bells, refill a prescription all by his little self.  Where a free shuttle bus will whisk him from Frisco to Breck faster than Sean can down a mountain dew.

But does my stomach pang every time I try to imagine running Magnus Gluteus without Sean?  Or Catherines.  Or Race for the Birds.  I’m trying not to think about it.  Sean loves trail running more than anyone I know.  He laughs harder than anyone I know.  Maybe the two have to go together, given how frequently Sean end-os on those rocks.

So how does a runner cope with sharply conflicted emotions?  Why, alcohol, of course.

The 10 mile loop up to Signal Knob was just long enough to justify the long party in the Signal Knob parking lot.  Sean’s been recovering from last spring’s knee surgery all summer, so it’s been a while since we’ve been able to chase him down rocky trails.  Or, should I say, watch him whizz by like the Flash and dissolve before our eyes into the trees.

Sean brings out the younger versions of folk, and even old-man-chronic-back-aches Zaruba was flying down like a spring chicken.  And speaking of recoveries, a highlight of the day was definitely seeing Schmidty hurdling over those rocks as if his pelvis had no idea it was being held together by a long piece of metal.  Sean told me Brian could hike 4 miles.  He did 8.

All hell broke loose when Sean cracked open a bottle of fine Spottsylvania bourbon in the parking lot.  For future events, we should coordinate and make sure only one person brings a bottle of bourbon.  Mr Corris won’t be making that mistake again.

We spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to convince Zaruba to spend more time with us in DC.  If we can’t have Sean’s giggles, can we at least have Zubs’s stories?

Truth is, I know we’ll still be seeing plenty of Sean, perhaps as much as I see him these days in Leesburg.  I promise, on the sacred paw of my cat Leda, that I will try in earnest to make it out to Frisco 2x a year (winter and summer), and I will set-in-stone make it out once a year.  In return, Mr Andrish, you should know by now that I will not forget your promise to visit DC once a year.  DC sure is nice in April and May during Frisco’s dreary mud season.  And we got Promise Land, Race for the Birds, Lobsterfest….

WUS celebrates 10 years of drinking beer, not getting arrested, and fitting in some running in there

The Woodley Ultra Society running club has survived since 2006, owing to the strength of its core principle: trail running should be fun.  And preferably combined with tasty beverages and gooey pizza, in an establishment where the staff knows us well enough to not care that we stink.

Recognizing the importance of beverages in the history of WUS, we celebrated the tin anniversary with a Beer Mile, trail-style.  Kerry O. and Kirstin attended as the sole representatives of the original WUS group, which has mostly scattered to other nationally recognized trail running meccas like Bend, Frisco, and….Alexandria.

The high turnover of WUSsies means that newcomers are often the lifeblood of the club, and it was fitting that the Mile winners were both newbies.  Trevor B., WUS’s latest pride and joy, cruised to victory in the men’s race, even besting the JLD Donut King.

The fact that Sheila hasn’t WUSsed in a year appeared to be no limitation during her dominating victory in the women’s race.  But the Beer Mile is a race where the losers and winners pretty much get the same prize at the end: the chance to see Martha totally blasted out her mind.

 

Results

Trevor	8:17 – mic drop
JLD	10:02 – so tantalizing close to being Donut/Beer double champ, maybe if he WUSed more
Sheila	11:15 – queen of suds
Dr. JJ	11:40 – winner, PhD category
WHTom	11:53 – winner, best effort to make it to a Beer Mile
Marmot	13:19 – winner, didn’t poop my pants!
JoCo	18:21 – winner, best Beer Mile blowup
O’Sullivans	21:31 – winners!  always.  inscribed in the WUS rulebook
Kir and Ma Walcott	26:14:00 - first ma!
Brienne	DNF – but brought tasty snacks
Angie	DNF – but performed a vital task that unfortunately cannot be credited due to the tenuous nature of Angie’s employment
Liana	DNS – best reason for not doing a Beer Mile
Jabooter	DNS - best nickname
Aras	DNS - best performance by a toddler in what must have seemed a horror movie of bright lights and belching zombies
Momma Julian	DNS - best performance in soothing a toddler trapped inside a horror movie
Aaron	DNS – points points points!  for timing….for tolerating the drunk marmot….for finding Trevor’s wallet
Sarah and Scott	DNS – best visual depiction of a marmot

As commemoration of 10 years of WUSsies, we stretched our memories to come up with a top-10 list of WUS lore:

10.  Neal dropping a deuce in the fancy Georgetown house’s backyard in the final stretch of the Donut Run.

9.  The WUS when Aaron & co tried their best not to interuptus the coitus that was brazenly occurring along our WUS route.

8.  ‘I would run the s%*& out of that hill’ – PHT 2015

 

7.  The night Tom C. tried to get Matt to pass him the damn pepper.

6.  The Plague of Frogs WUS.

5.  The WUS when Joe and Michele were Uh, Just Looking at These Rocks Over Here.

4.  The moment when Nancy from the Track faceplanted over the final chain on the Glover Archibald Trail.  Trail fairies everywhere were extinguished in sorrow.

3.  Neal and Bobby collapsed beside each other at the finish line of the most Epic Beer Mile WUS.

2.  The surreal snowfall WUS when we came across a man with a long white beard and no shoes riding a white horse bareback while carrying a staff.

1. The time that Sean swapped his slightly-less-sweat-drenched shirt for Keith’s at CPBG so that Keith could keep macking unsuccessfully on waitress Kathleen.