Team Champions!

Ben put it best when he quoted Ice Cube in saying that "today was a good day" - except he owed the adjective a superlative and should have said "great!"

I figured it would be a close race as I sized up the pre-registered competition this week, but when it was all said and done, Howard County men's team still stuck it to us. They scored 168, we were 2nd at 286. On the women's side, I truly was surprised to see Westminster pull out the victory ahead of us (19 to 28). They went 1-3-4 while we countered with 2-5-6.

Then came the real award, the only one I'm ever concerned with: Team Overall. And today was all about the idea that "every runner counts," because it really was pretty close. We scored 610 to Howard County's 684, which is a solid victory but every place certainly counted for us.

A tear nearly came to my eye when I heard them announce 2nd place, realizing we had won. I'm really happy that we did what we set out to do, and glad for all of you who had great performances. Kyle with the overall win and a great time, Ben running on a lingering cold and Justin "Big Poppa" Gerbereux really did some work, and newcomer Ed had a great day. Arjun certainly improved on his time last year in a major way and we really needed Sticks out there as well.

But the hands-down runner of the day AND Purple Drink Athlete of the Week recipient was clearly Brennan Feldhausen. 56:39, 11th place overall is absolutely out of control. He was just 15 seconds back of Ben, and I could still see Brennan at 5 miles (he was around 28:12, I was 28:35) - so he ran a scary second half. I'm really excited to see what the kid's got in a month!

The clutch performance of the day, though, and recipient of the KC Masterpiece Award goes to the entire Falls Road women's team. We would not have won (obviously) without the amazing performances of the clan. Mary ran her ass off in a time that would normally win here, yet somehow took 2nd! The winner was just insane. Denise ran faster than last year and Eileen ran another solid race - looking like herself again. And our 4th scorer was in fact youngster Brittney Rooks (Remus' daughter).

The race reminded me a little of Black Hawk Down (which I'm watching right now) because we went into battle armed with many skilled warriors against super huge teams of skinnies, and while we lost a few of our own (T and Barf) we took out more of them.

Then of course you go and read the biased race recap on their website. They are pretty psyched on their men's win, as they should be, placing 6 in the top 10. There's not much we can do about that. We did well to have 9 of our scorers under an hour (much better than last year). They breeze over what happened on the women's side, only making the comment "we need more young women."

1) Young people can't afford to live in your county and if I were young I wouldn't want to live in a county

2) Their 4 scorers really weren't that old. With the exception of Brittney, who skewed the results, our average age wasn't much younger than HoCo, and Montgomery County was actually older, and they beat them. So age card is out the window

Then there is a misquote, because I definitely did not say what they have me saying. They like to call us out on bringing in "ringers" and this and that when they lose. I said we were missing 3 top runners today, which we were (in Kip, Berdan and Julia). We brought a slimmed down team, about half of what we had last year, and just accomplished amazing results. So don't listen to them.

Great job everyone, you certainly earned your wings (and free beer - thanks Kisling's!). And for the people that were supposed to show up that DIDN'T, well, that will be for another time. Fortunately you weren't that important anyway, as it turned out...