There were only eleven Illinois Trail Ultra Grand Slam contenders left after three of the four Grand Slam races. All eleven of those runners signed-up, showed-up, and finished the Farmdale Trail 32 Miler. Congratulations to all of them. It's been a long year and they persevered. Farmdale hasn't posted their race results yet, so I can't officially update the full Grand Slam standings, but I can say that Matt Condrun and Jake Vernon were the overall male & female iTUGS champions for 2009! Well done. Everyone got a Grand Slam t-shirt for finishing...Matt & Jake also grabbed those trophies sitting on the ground in the photo to the left.I'll have a race report later, but it was a wonderful day for running. The trail was soft, but not muddy. The weather was almost perfect...nice and cool, partly sunny, and only a hint of a breeze. Many runners started with light jackets, gloves, and hats, but most tossed those aside after the first 8-mile loop. One crazy guy even got rid of his hat, gloves, shirt, vest, shoes, and socks...just so he'd have a "cool" finish line photo as he sprinted barefoot to the finish! I was that crazy fella, so I couldn't take any photos of that mad dash...looked like a couple folks at the finish area captured the moment. I'm sure I'll be blackmailed to keep them off the internet.
UPDATE: The Farmdale results are posted and I have updated the final Grand Slam standings.
10 comments:
That's Slamtastic! Congrats to those 11 folks! Chris, let us all know what the ransom amount turned out to be for that photo...
Thanks for a great time with the Slam Chris, Pretty excited I am the ONLY ILLINOIS woman to finish the ILLINOIS TRAIL ULTRA GRAND SLAM!!!
WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO
Did you see the size of that guy with the blue tights next to Matt Condron? Man, I bet his ankles are sore from being such a Clydesdale!
Great job, Chris!
I recently came across these instructions for making your own running sandals. It made me think of you.
Rob--I know about Barefoot Ted. I'm on his minimalist runner listserv and I keep up with his blog. Nice guy. And interesting. Lots of folks actually do make their own running sandals.
Donna--Well done with the Slam finish...and you were 4th place OVERALL!
Jerry--Hope the NB 790 shoes served you well. I changed into them after one loop in my "clunky" Nike trail shoes.
Gregory--If the ransom is more than one beer, I won't pay! I'm sure the photos will be on the web soon. Of course, I was moving SO FAST at the finish they'll be a blur!
I'm seriously laughing here! My parents were there and they told me that some "crazy guy" finished the race "practically naked" with just shorts on...it was YOU?! Hahaha! Good job!
Heidi-
Yep, that was me. Carrying my race bib in my mouth (not sure why I didn't just clip it to my shorts). Possible pictures of a tall, skinny, pale white guy coming...
I wish I saw that! I never saw you on the course, you must have been ahead of me the whole time. It was nice meeting you though, finally.
I wondered why there was a guy putting his clothes back on as I was coming out of the woods! You were the only other soul I saw out there on that final lap (except for Mike and family's smiling faces) - I don't think I was talking to myself yet at that point.
Laura
Hi Laura,
Yep, that was me. You're right about that last loop--I think I passed 2 people that whole loop and never saw anyone else. It was kind of weird. I guess all the really fast people were WAY ahead and never slowed down. Congrats on the finish!
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