Rennenwochenende

Race weekend. I heart ze races. So many folks coming together to run their little hearts out.

We drove to Cincinnati Friday night, woke up early Saturday and checked out Music Hall. After many months of deliberation, we may have found a spot to seal the deal. It's between the two last weekends in August, but I'm thinking it's going to work out. So that's a huge weight off our shoulders and now it's just a matter of planning it in a most practical way. So I'm going to cross my fingers that it works out, but as of right now, you can count on either the 22nd or 29th of August, 2009.

The rest of Saturday was filled with brunches and birthday parties. We ate with Bradley and Leah at the Echo. It was my pleasure to introduce them to the excellent fare. Erica's niece turned four over the weekend, so we spent the rest of the day playing princess games and opening presents. It's crazy how excited she was. You could tell how hard it was for her to contain herself. All the gifts went over quite well and the night was finally capped with a victory for the lucky Bucks. Madison is a tough place to play and an even tougher place to win. But I'm pretty sure Wisconsin deserved it. OSU's D-line was null and void the entire night.

Then it was up and at 'em early on Sunday morning. I made my way north to Piqua, picked up my sister and took 66 the rest of the way into Minster for the 30th running of the Minster Oktoberfest 10K. The weather couldn't have been better. It was chilly and clear... with nary a breeze to be found. This was the first race for my brother and at 6.2 miles, he was slightly nervous. This would also mark the first time that my two siblings and I would be running a race together. It was fun to be around them for the start and especially for the finish. Everyone did really well and I even ran into Rick Callison. Rick won the inaugural race 30 years ago in near world record time. Back in the day, he was as fast as they come. In 1980, he ran a 2:17:42 for the Olympic qualifier in Buffalo, NY. I've known "Calli" for a long time as he's been a member of the Turkey Bowl brigade for as long as I can remember. Every Thanksgiving morning, a group of roughly 20 men, women and children get together to play a rousing football game behind High Street School in Piqua. Not until this year did I realize his running accomplishments. I was looking forward to talking with him Thanksgiving morning, but was lucky enough to run into him at the race. I'm sure I'll still have plenty of questions when I see him in a month and a half.

As for the race, I turned in a respectable 41:29 and was able to better my first half 5K by almost a minute. I almost placed in the "Clydesdale" division (over 185 lbs.). That just means I have something to work for next year. Maybe I can get Erica to run it as well. The best was seeing how many people puked immediately following the race. Sunday morning follows two very heavy nights of drinking in this sleepy little town and it is expected that many won't be able to hold in the previous night's revelry following 6.2 miles. Hurling a day old brat all over Main Street is almost a rite of passage for these folks.

Sehen sie folgendes jahr.