Sport Today

So if you're thinking of driving all the way downtown to pick up your
packet tomorrow (Wed. Nov. 22, 2000), I'd advise against it. If you work
downtown, walking over and finding out if they changed their minds again
wouldn't hurt. But for those of us who have to drive in from the
suburbs....

As always, your mileage may vary. I'm hoping to put in 30 this week.

--
Rob

I'm running for my life!
Rome Marathon to raise money for the ADA

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Tracey

For those of you who might be interested, here's my view....

Race day was cold - 19F. Packet pickup went smoothly, with the
ChampionChip system being used for timing. Pittsburgh EMS had a truck
standing by at the start/finish, and another one at about the 1/4 mile
mark. At least one Pittsburgh paramedic was running in the race.

The course itself started out on a mild uphil toward Grant street,
dropped down by the PNC building onto 1st street and then cut back
behind the County Jail to pick up the Eliza Furnace trail. At the 2.5
mile mark, the race turned around and came back the way it went for
total of 5 miles. The course was fairly flat, especially for Pittsburgh,
although not as flat as the Homestead Waterfront 5k last week.

Crowd size made for some interesting strategy. There were 813 runners,
not including at least 1 dog and one baby carriage. Position really
helped in the 1st half mile, as it will in any race, but then it became
an even bigger problem when the race got down to the Eliza Furnace
Trail. The pack had not thinned out enough by the time we hit the fairly
narrow trail. About the time the back of the pack (where I was) thinned
out, the cyclists coming the other way were herding everyone over to one
side for the front-runners. Just after the 2.5 mile mark, things seemed
to thin out enough where I was.

During the race, there were people with plastic reindeer antlers on
their heads and some others with tossle caps done up to look like
turkeys.

The race course that was on local streets was held secure by the
Pittsburgh Police, County Sherrif's people, and the Pittsburgh Emergency
Police.

Timing was by S. Mark Courtney and the Runner's High.

After the race, the YMCA had bagels, bananas, and apples, bottled water,
and hot chocolate. The bottled water (which someone had the sense to not
chill, thankfully) ran out a little early - I was probably one of the
last runners to get a bottle.

They had nice plaques for the winners. The T-shirts were nice, with a
cartoon turkey by a local editorial cartoonist running.

After thanksgiving dinner, I had a reason to doze off!

--
Rob

I'm running for my life!
Rome Marathon to raise money for the ADA

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

---snip---

Even though I finished before a lot of people, at 37:34, I waited for
someone that came in at the 60 minute mark before I made it up to the
refreshments, but I didn't see any bananas apples or bottled water or signs
of them.

They did however have bagels, hot chocolate and cookies.  The hot chocolate
was a good idea, but they poured it too far from where they passed it out
and carried them over one at a time so they ran pretty low on it.  They also
had pop and there was no line for that.

Back to the bananas, well I normally take some with me because a lot of
races to run out, but I forgot this time.

Roger