OK, we did it. No sunburns, no frostbite (closer to the latter than the former) and more than a little soggy, but we did it. Friend Kevin could not do the event, but was at the finish line to greet us and take pictures.

All the NOVA walkers finished. Naomi and I started more or less next to Marni Matyac, behind Jacque, Carol Day, Linda Schwartzstein, Cathy ??, Paula McNichols, Virginia Ukaegbu. Naomi and I passed the others before the first turn, then my good wife took off like a scalded rabbit and left me to my own devices. She finished ahead of me, I was in turn ahead of the others mentioned above.

By mile 3 no one doing the race had a dry place left on their body, and all feet were squishing with every step. But we all finished, and other than being cold (60 is fine if you're moving, but lousy with a 15mph wind, wet clothes, no mylar blankets and no shelter) everyone seemed fine. If you want to know details, the results are available http://results.active.com/pages/stats.jsp?rsID=78270

They ran out of XL men's shirts (you can just imagine how delighted I was to be told at 4:00 pm that we should simply have gotten there earlier). However, instead of coming back completely empty-handed, after me making a little fuss they managed to find size XL shirts which look identical to the standard issue, except ours say "Volunteer" on the right sleever instead of "Competitor". Figured that was a lot better than nothing.

Then there were the mis-measured miles, and the final straw, noted above, of no mylar blankets at the end on a cold windy day. Seems they only ordered 3000 mylars, despite claiming the race was going to be 9000 strong, and actually having almost 7000 entries. Can imagine the nice email I'm going to send the Deputy Director who got us our "Volunteer" shirts? They ask for comments, right? And she gave me her biz card with title and email address, so guess I'll have to prove the adage "if you don't want my opinion, don't ask".

Near or beyond 60?
T
GEEZE

A
M
Old is just a word!

Racewalking to save lives. Donate at http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/nikesf09/tfarnam