While some of the pine belt pacers elected to head north to Jackson to run a 5k, Others such as Ed Wheeler and myself decided to run in our back yard so to speak. Not only did we avoid the soaking that Phillip and others got from the rain we managed to get our usual dosage of heat and humidity. Not only that we mixed in some hills that are not too common in our coastal runs.

This is our hilliest race on the coast and being held in August it is compounded by the heat and humidity. Dripping sweat at the starting line is not a good thing except it keeps other runners from getting too close to you. This turned out to be one of the gulf coast running clubs largest races of the year, (for some reason attendance seems to be increasing on our runs.

Any way the race was won by Leonard in 17 min. and some change. The interesting thing about that was Leonard crashed and burned in a Duathlon a couple of weeks ago and is suffering some road rash, stitches and a broken arm. Can you say Narley old Dude, Boys and girls. Speaking of that Lots of kids use this race to kick of their H. S. cross country season. I overheard a few of them after the race. One of them said man some of those old dudes can really run! I turned around and glared at him (I'm 56) And said, "Watch how you say old Dudes!". He turned red. I laughed and I said the good news is you guys will get faster. All we can do is hang on. His buddies laughed.

Anyway this race has an abundance of Goodies after the finish. Not just your usual punch and cookies boys and girls. They had Beer, sandwiches, soft drinks, many brands of cookies. Oh And a big old Cement pond to cool off in. For some folks the 5k wasn't enough. Several went for extra mileage on Bikes and on foot. others elected to do laps in the pool. Check out the results on the clubs web site. © BC