I am just now sending a notice back to the lovely town of Corfu, New York, population 920 (seriously), look it up, I did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu,_New_York
I was driving back from Boston for the 11th or 12th straight year, we just wrapped up our 10th anniversary Boston Tea Party - Team Canada Brunch. Eager to get home, grab the dog, speeding ticket ensued....rats. So it's a few months later I make sure to mail my strange parking notice back to this Court Office, consider me quilty as charged and tell me what I owe Uncle Sam kind sirs. I used to ignore these tickets in my wayward youth (18- until a few months ago), but learned a valuable lesson from a buddy, David, who was turned away en route to the Boston Marathon in 2003 (Rallying the Country):
http://bostonteaparty.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=86
Imagine all the silly excuses for missing a race? Here is what David will have to say 25 years from now..."son, your dad did indeed qualify for the Boston Marathon, but an unpaid parking ticket meant I had to miss the occasion"....wambly Pop....
How about Bike Rash? (me, summer of 2008, pre Ironman training)...hard and uncomfortable lesson here let me tell you. (also known as Butt Rash). I spent more on Penaten baby cream than those quintuplet parents..
Getting lost on the way to a race (somewhere in rural Florida, December 2005, Swamp Land Half Marathon I believe).....my friend and I drove the same loop 3x then realized we were never going to make that starting line on time, turns out we didn't miss much afterall, crap small-time race....saved us $40
Summer Cottage race was cancelled without notifying the participants beforehand (Darren and I, Orillia, 1997 or thereabouts, we wasted a fine Saturday evening of drinking the nite before).
Stayed in bed due to (insert weather problems here)...Cold, Snowy, Ice Storm, Heat Wave. 2002 Spring Run Off in High Park, how bad was it? The Elite Kenyans never left the VIP tent that morning.....
Injuries? Too common.
Missed Flights (my two friends from Streetsville at Pearson Airport as I boarded the plane for Run Barbados, stand by no luck, one was a Dr.) Weird, pony up the dough cheapo....
How about Jail? Tough to make the starting line when you're behind bars, I actually know a runner who missed a race for this, crazy stuff.....
Misread the race application.......easy to do in the 1980's and 1990's before websites existted. I was at a race one Sunday morning, London Ontario in fact, Springbank Park Road Races. In the parking lot as I unloaded the car, I see a guy running along wearing the shirt of the upcoming Toronto Marathon I knew of. "Guess you won't be attending that race this year?"....I ask, knowing that the race was this very same morning, 225 km's away....
"Oh yeah, I registered and look forward to next weekend".
Silly.
I am certain someone, somewhere missed an event by leaving behind crucial equipment, like a bike helmet, a bike....running shoes possibly? Happened to me but fortunately I was able to borrow a friend's running shorts at the 11th hour, felt weird the whole time....
I almost missed a race because I decided to experiment with adding caffeine to my diet....2 large Kenyan Blend coffees pre-race, not smart, upset stomach for 10km's....should have mailed it in, stubbornly went ahead and paid the price at the half-way point. Nothing worse than being 5km away from the start line of a 10km run and you can't exactly stop.
How about you? Anything weird and wonderful to share?
Peter
peter@mynextrace.com
