Bob

It never ceases to amaze me how when the word gets out about a race, people flock together. You don’t always know who may decide to show up from the group. Bob is notorious for appearing race day at the start line, or sometimes we don’t see him until the finish. 

Let me give you a little background on Bob. He was the first person to sign up for the inaugural Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Oh in 1997. He is like an official greeter in pig bonnet at every expo.  He walked his 150th Marathon at the Flying Pig two years ago.  He has done all fifty states, and I am pretty sure the first time around was all full marathons or better.  He is on his second round, and he was in need of Indiana. So when he got wind of the Hawthorne, he joined in. 

This time we knew ahead and he joined us for dinner, shared in our RV stop and was good to go 9 laps to get his full marathon miles in.  He shared with me during one of our training walks that his bigger goal was to make this his 25th ultra… 10 laps. He had even done all the math; we could feasibly do a 22-minute mile and still get it in the 12 hours. Took all the pressure off for the 50K goal! 

Bob being Bob, he walked his race. He came into mile 2 of lap 10 about the time we were finishing our tenth lap.  He rested and then finished his lap, (so already he is one lap over what he told us he was going to do,) and little did we know,  just so he could have bragging rights, he had timed his arrival at the finish perfectly for the 6:30 pm 30-minute out and backs! 

Way to go Bob. You not only surpassed your 9-lap goal with 10 laps, you also added another mile that lasts 30 minutes while we all sat around the campground waiting to go to the awards ceremony!

Bob collected the big trophy for his 32 miles, being top overall male walker and edging out the rest of us with that extra mile!

Good luck with the rest of the 50 states!