|
It probably was just meant to be. After several months of hard practice, team camaraderie and high expectations,
the Ripers, GFRC's Mixed 50 + team with a "come-from-behind" racing attitude, had to struggle through the heat
and humility and settle for a less than awesome performance. With the bitter disappointment now tucked away with
our sweaty baton, team anchor and cheerleader Cecil Gahan vowed that our team would come back stronger next year,
or else become known as the "stay-behind" team. Trouble should have been expected early in the training season when we lost some of our original stalwarts including Jean Goudy, who got called to serve our country on reserve duty, Fran Marchankevicz, who got called to serve Lonny on a cruise ship and John Shane who got called to the championship team. We were fortunate to recruit Cecile Gahan, Ed Ginsberg, Suzi Lawton and Rich Simon. These substitutes agreed to participate on short notice and came with little preparation to make the trek up north. The rest, as they say, is history. With a little mystery we did manage to get the baton over the finish line. Searching for the positive, and this may be a bit of a stretch, we managed to accomplish the following: · finished higher than last year - 121 versus 124. (Does it matter that the team in the 122nd and last position this year had to drop out?) · broke the 10 min per mile barrier. (that is, less than 10 min per mile - if you don't count a few legs!) · finished only three positions behind the other more revered GFRC mixed 50+ team, · finished 6th in our division (Yes, you guessed it, there were only 6 teams), and · broke the 10 hour barrier (uups, sorry, on the wrong side). Here's a short recap. On the first leg, yours truly got the team off to an inauspicious start by providing a not-so commanding lead over the last team and other drop-outs. Trail-blazer Barry Ostrow had a punishing time with the hard road surface during the 2nd leg. I don't want to say he came in late but we had to persuade the clock watchers to stay around a little longer. Suzi had a little trouble with the 3rd leg. She said that it wasn't the steep hill. (Well Suzi, if it wasn't the hill then what was it?) Reliable Ed Ginsberg had a good fourth leg, consistent with past years. We need more runners and leg lengths of this caliber. The unseparable Team-Tyler, Ted and Mary, gave our team it's best leg, finishing a remarkable 109th. Cecile took on the 5th l eg, a challenging 10.8 miler and did magnificently. And then there's Rich "the comeback kid" Simon. Before Team-Tyler could even finish their leg, Rich was off and running! Baton in hand! One of our team's mysteries. Nancy Rearick did our last leg. Does Nancy really enjoy doing this leg? I never saw anybody finish up that steep hill with such a huge smile. Probably she was contemplating changing teams! Wait until next year ~ Joe Koziol |