2014 Report

Report

Two original members of the Slugs, Rebecca & James Moore, were in attendance this year and logged in some miles of Loop 1. The NPS has tight restrictions for marking trails so Co-RD’s Johanna Lockner and Bruce Tweedie only lightly marked the course the day before. Although runners were warned about ribbons being down for the 3rd Loop, the slim-to-none markings led to several mis-turns and extra miles for some lucky participants. Thanks to Bruce for guiding the large pack of runners on the initial 2-mile loop, and then taking the ribbons down to try to leave the trails cleaner than when we found them.

The “winners” of this year’s run were Kathleen Cusick for the ladies and Philip Dunn, from San Diego, for the men. Philip was visiting relatives in Arlington and it was special to have a past USA run walker Olympian in our midst. Phil ran rather than walked the 50K, and his time was 2 minutes off the “event record” held by Howard Nippert in 2009 (4:38).

“Thank you” goes out to all participants who brought various forms of sustenance to benefit their fellow runners at the S/F check-in area. Dave Snipes showed up to help rather than run and stayed on duty from daylight to dusk, manning the soup kitchen setup provided by Stephanie Danahy & John Stacy, complete with soups, hot chocolate, and whipped cream toppings. Anstr had made the check in and time sheets easy with the entry list, waiver form, and 3 column self-entry slots all wrapped into one. Even so, the interpretation of entered times and distances is strictly mine. Accept the results to follow, accordingly!

As mentioned, there were 124 people who registered – I added a few who were shy to admit they were there. Almost one-third were “first timers” and about 40% came from outside of Virginia. There were 10 married couples with both spouses doing at least parts of a loop, not including Vicki & Farouk. That number did however include Grace Ranson and Scott Adams from Charlottesville who extended their wedding night at the Redeye, having just gotten married the evening before. Is that dedication and diligence, or do they really need to get a life?? Whatever, it was fun to share some of Grace’s 21 miles (4:58) and Scott’s 31 miles (5:49) with them, and they were on their way back to C’ville to enjoy their wedding bliss by 2:30 PM.

Several happenings of the day are worth mentioning and sharing. We filled just about every parking spot available to us within ¼ mile of the S/F area at Pine Grove. The Park had closed off a large parking area past the Visitors Center, which necessitated several cars to be parked along the shoulder of an access road. Ranger John was apprised of the situation and he understood about our dilemma. Note: may need more parking for 2015?

We continue to be blessed with good winter weather for the Redeye. For 2014, calm 40 degrees and sunny was near perfect for the runners, and just a couple dry warm layers made the post-run visitation and rehashing quite pleasant. Many bragging predictions were made for the upcoming running calendar year. And still much time for reneging on such claims.

Kendel Prescott had flown into National Airport from Georgia on Tuesday, rented a car and was ready to run Wednesday morning. She ran 28 miles + and scurried back to National for her return to Georgia Wednesday evening. This was to accomplish running at least a marathon in Virginia. This completed the SIXTH time she has run a marathon in EVERY State. I believe I got that right (?) Her husband, who was not at Redeye 2014, will be running a marathon in Hawaii later this month to complete his SEVENTH time of finishing the “50 X 26.2 Club”, or whatever it’s called (?) Wow! Talk about a life (?)

Greg Loomis finished his 100th Ultra run by completing Redeye 2014. Bill Gentry ran with Greg pretty much start to finish to make sure he kept on track to get it done. I remember when Dr Loomis was an upstart graduate student at UVA and running his first MMT in 2000. Congratulations Greg.

Vicki & Farouk finished the 2014 Redeye 50K together, yet again. This is the ninth time Vicki has finished the entire Redeye and the 7th time for Farouk. Stephanie Wilson is now 4 for 4 in going the entire distance. Quatro held off on partying until completing his three loops for the first time at Redeye.

It was thought that Francie Hankins was the DFL finisher (she didn’t know what that meant) when she came in a little after 5:00 PM. That was my Bad when I failed to account for every runner on the list. After Dave, John, Johanna, Q, Paul, Alan and Smitty had helped sort and load up trash versus salvageable, we all left about 5:20. I later (thankfully) received a very polite email from Gretchen Bolton stating that she and Stanley Podlasek had finished at 5:32 PM. Sorry to take that DFL title away from Francie, but it now belongs to Gretchen & Stanley for 2014. Keep trying Francie!

There were no obvious and/or apparent recipients for the Colenso Award for this year. What’s up with that??

I can’t think of many better ways to start off the New Year as with an exhilarating romp in the winter woods with neat, fun friends. The list of the record-breaking crowd and approximate distances covered are as follows. Even these results may come forth in stages.

Congratulations to ALL the runners, no matter which distance you chose to tally. Thank you to ALL the runners for bringing and sharing aid for everyone. Of note were the turkey & ham sub sandwiches brought by John Sonderman. I had thought the salty junk food would be the first to disappear, but John’s (real food) subs really hit the spot. Thanks to John for getting into the heads (and tummy’s) of the runners. Much of the leftover food/snack items will be forwarded to upcoming VHTRC training runs.

There were just a couple items left over in the lost-and-found:
Pair of camouflage mittens with fingers cut out (quite warm during this recent cold weather, thank you)
Dark blue, Large, Tek Gear outer pants with zipper leg bottoms.

Let me know if these items belong to you.

All distances and times listed above are approximate. Hope to see many of you and others at the Redeye 2015 to be run on Thursday January 1st, 2015.

Happy Trails, Gary

Results