Year: 2025

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Woodley Ultra Society (WUS) member Mike Bonfatto, best known as the 2022 WUS Rookie of the Year and 2024 Donut Run DFL, joined Martha and Nora in a special WUS-edition audio recording to tell the story of his foray into “ride ‘n’ tie” at the 2025 World Ride N Tie Championship.

Audio recording (20 min, 55 sec, short version, edited by Martha and Bjorn; long version available at the end of the blog; music by Paula Cole “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone”)

The “Dream Team”: Martha, “Dream,” Nora and Mike (left to right)
Cowboy Mike “at least I wasn’t the one in the ambulance” Bonfatto survives his first ride n tie on Dream

The GoPro video Cowboy Mike sent us from his Bolivia ride in 2014 impressed me and Nora enough to convince us Mike could ride n tie.

Ride N Tie involves trail riding and running. Barb rides her bay Arabian mare FYF Riding Under the Influence (aka “Dream”) in the World Championship Long Course.
Dream is unimpressed with Mike pretending to be hard.
Rick Noer won the Equathon blind date lottery when I paired him up with Mike, who crushed the 8-mile trail run so their team could finish 2nd (out of 22 teams).
Nora, Martha, and Chris
Chris, Kelly and Comet win the Long Course World Championship

The longer “Director’s Cut” version of the audio recording that Mike “edited” is available here.

WUS Beer Mile 2025

The WUS Beer Mile annual tradition: instigated by Martha, tolerated by Aaron.

Chapter 1: New Kids on the Block

The Pacers contingent livened up the race this year, but ultimately could not upend the WUS reigning champion Trevor. Keith looks on, wondering what happened to the good old days when WUS was just about trail running.
Anthony, the guy responsible for contaminating Keith’s trail running group with road runners. (4th place finisher)
Joe (2nd place) put the heat on Trevor, but Mr November couldn’t best the champ.
Bobby faltered because of a fashion choice made weeks ago when it was 40 degrees, not 80.
If you’re wondering why there are so many more photos of Pacers than Wussies, WUS may have bested Pacers in the race, but Duy outdid Keith behind the camera. You know Keith is off his game when he didn’t even get a picture of Keavy.
Duy was still snapping photos at 12:30am when we finally left Atomic Billiards. Mike later admitted to regretting his 8 beers, which he insists is the only reason I bested him 3x in pool. Fortunately, Mike had other victories that night, including a 4 minute PR that ended his 2x DFL streak.

Chapter 2: Records Fall

Mike’s DFL Beer Mile record of 27 minutes was considered untouchable until Alvin bested it in an epic 28 minute battle. Long after everyone else finished, Alvin sat in the road nursing his last beer muttering I don’t want to puke, reminiscent of Mike’s donut run at the Dupont Fountain. We officially have a new Mike.
King Trevor was pushed into a new Beer Mile PR of 7:13 to keep his win streak alive and take home the roses (or in this case a disposable urinal, leading to questions from his wife).

Jaret’s video: https://youtube.com/shorts/ciyMS_LgPsc

Keli has legit questions.
Another record falls! Adam bested last year’s record of three official inquiries about grand master prizes.
Heather set the Beer Mile twerking record AND managed to not be DFL (Although she did puke. We did not enforce penalty laps this year, what with all the chaos and very drunk and very useless race RD and resigned Aaron.)
Greta and Martha: the only two women who DIDN’T puke.

Jaret’s video #2: https://youtube.com/shorts/CRMdZjKZbvw?feature=share

Seb won a prize for reasons the drunk RD no longer recalls, but probably related only to his anticipated enjoyment, while Oren looks on with a look of concern, given that children are present.
Years from now, Bjorn will discuss these events with his therapist.
That’s a wrap! See you again in in 2026.
PlaceNameTime
1Trevor7:13
2Joe7:18
3Peyton8:05
4Anthony8:13
5Eli8:22
6Brian F9:00
7Chris Q9:02
8Andy H9:08
9JLD9:23
10Will9:28
11Garret9:34
12
(1st W)		Keavy9:35
13Adam R10:12
14
(2nd W)		Martha10:36
15Nate10:46
16Jared11:05
17Duy11:29
18NASA Alvin12:05
19Oren12:28
20Samson12:34
21Steve12:49
22
(3rd W)		Greta12:57
23Mike B13:59
24Bobby16:05
25
(4th W)		Heather 16:06
26NIH Alvin28:56:00

Team Score: (top 3 men, top 1 woman)

#1. WUS Trevor, Peyton, Anthony, Keavy: 1 + 3 + 4 + 1 = 9

#2 Pacers Joe Eli Chris Greta: 2 + 5 + 7 + 3 = 17

#3 Others Jared NASA-Alvin NIH-Alvin Martha (using NIH affiliation): 16 + 18 + 26 + 2 = 62

Bonus points to Peyton for taking the bronze AND wearing his Russian apron to the after-party at Cleveland Park Bar and Grill despite needing to drive cross country to Arkansas the next morning.