September 2002 Newsletter

Going All Out in the Noonday Sun . .

Empire Haven, otherwise known as the nudist camp race, as I affectionately call it, or the deer fly massacre (not so lovingly) was terrific this year. I opted to run the 4th leg of 4.5 miles, the one individual leg chosen this year in order to gain points for the trail series.

Around 20 plus fully clothed people were pre-registered but many more showed up on a beautiful morning. This day of the race registration seems to have become a trend this year.

I was happy to see Derek D. arrive as he and I have become rivals over the past year or so. He generally wins out in the end, usually leads the way and his younger legs combined with the High Noon training regime are hard to challenge.

We ran together most of the way, a beautiful trail that I hadn't run on before. He led almost the entire time at a pretty fast pace. Occasionally he would miss a turn and we'd get each other back on course only for me to miss a turn and he would shout at me and again he'd take over the lead! We followed lots of arrows and flags and the course was well marked as long as you paid attention. We even talked a couple of times as the race went on and we felt more comfortable with our 'out in front' position. With about 600 yards to go I told him to "take it home" knowing that he was probably stronger than I. About 200 yards later I was still close on his tail and I went for the lead. A kind of a ridiculous decision considering I didn't really know how far it was to the finish. We'd both been watching the clock and knew that the pretty flat and fast dry trail meant we had to be close by now. I hung on for dear life! We made a sharp right turn as we entered the open area of the park. I sprinted (Ok, ok, just try and imagine me sprinting anyway!) towards what I assumed had to be close to the finish. A lady stood almost in the middle of the pathway ahead of me and I saw flags to the right out of the corner of my eye. The sun was shining straight into my eyes. Anyway it totally blinded me and I took a right following the line of flags. All of a sudden people yelled and in an instant I'd lost the race. The finish line had been just 30 yards straight ahead, not to the right. I screamed "d..n it" in my proper English way and Derek took the win. Any rumors that I was simply taking a short cut to the swimming pool area are totally false.

Thanks to Doug Kibby and his fine crew of volunteers for a great event. The course was beautiful and well marked and the deer fly population seemed a lot better controlled this year. See you next time!

-- Tim Ingall

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