March 2, 2007

Big Group This Morning

Man, everybody was there on my two-hours-starting-at-0400 run this morning.

Regis Shivers, who taught by example that you can compete and still be kind. Ben Clark, who has dragged me through countless trail miles that have helped me define the real me. Jeff, Neil and Pete, who I spent my first five or six years of ultrarunning chasing, running from, laughing and becoming brothers with. Dennis Herr, Gary Knipling, Chris Scott. Horton. Milton Webb, Dennis Hamrick, Mickey Jones. Aaron Goldman, who at 67 shared the final 25 miles of what turned out to be the first 100-mile finish for each of us back there in what seems like a lifetime ago. My current crew of Sophie, Potts, Michelle and Quatro, who show me over and over and over again that the best medicine is a big smile, a quick laugh, a good 'tude and a day playing in the dirt with people you love.

Anyone driving through this morning's pea-soup fog on that two-lane country road saw just one runner with a kick-butt flashlight and a funny-looking rain hat. They were all there, though.

(Regis Shivers Sr., about the toughest ultrarunner ever and a true man's man, died earlier this week after an excruiatingly long fight with cancer. RIP, dawg. RIP.)

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