roll-a-dahby/run-run-run the weekend

An action-packed weekend it was... Not only did I get flashed (and offered to have the sweat licked off me) by ****y [Who shall remain nameless, to protect the guilty. You know who you are, Madam Feistiness.] during the Normal Park yard-sale-a-palooza, but Stacey and I went to the Derby. Roller Derby, that is.

It seems that Detroit has quite the roller derby league going on, and it's a nationwide phenomenon to boot. I didn't quite know what to think going into it. There's so much pagentry and attitude about it, I was partly suspecting that it was more entertainment than competition - a la WWF/WCW/world-wrestling-whatever. But after the first period, I got a better idea of what's going on in the rink (er, I mean "flat track" - do they have banked oval derby leagues? apparently so). In the second period, skaters were starting to work harder so the spectacle of it gave way to the competition of it. And regardless of the fact that Stacey and I didn't have nearly enough tattoos to be considered as part of the cool kids, it was a pretty good time. You know there's hilarity to be ensuing when a couple hours before going out, sitting on Stacey's porch with folks drinking beer, T says "you're going to roll a doobie?" "uh... no, we're going to The Roller Derby." Freudian slip of the ear? You be the judge.

And then on Sunday came the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run. I didn't run (translation: "hell with that.. running is too much work"), but volunteered to help out with lead-biking the course for the half-marathon and calling in times as the leader passed mile-markers. I wasn't expecting to get soaked by rain on the ride out to the start in Dexter though...

Anyhoo, I'm not a runner, but this I do know: when a runner can hit the 10-mile mark at 47 mins, they are a bad-ass mofo. Sub 5-minute miles for 13 miles? Wow. The dude who won (Alene Reta) was leading from the start - a group of 4 off the front in the first 1/2 mile split to 2 by the 4th mile, and then Reta started slowly pulling away from home-town favorite Brian (who had quite the cheering section along the course, I might add), adding about 5 seconds of lead every time he passed a mile marker.

Pretty big turnout for what seems like a local thing - thousands of people. I heard a bunch of different numbers - there was a bib# 3000 among the marathoners apparently, but registration was 2300. In the 10k, Suzanne said she finished mid-pack at 900th, and if you guess at the number of 5k-ers, I'll go with something on the order of 5000-8000 people total. And then at the end of it all, it rained again. But I had already been wet and gritty for a couple hours already.

After the running stuff, a shower, and a disco-nap for me, some folks met up at Connor O'Neill's to celebrate Suzanne's birthday and running of the 10k. Fred was in town for a wedding and came out and hung out, drinking beer and chatting with Georgina and I in multiple pubs about multiple topics, which was so much more than fun. Quite the fortuitous opportunity - Fred getting to meet and chat with G before our roadtrip up to the Twin Cities. I'm pretty stoked about it, and am not only glad that we'll get to hang out with Fred and Mona and the kids (in between my goofing off/riding the bike/touristing, and G's intensely worky researchy city-archive-digging), but thankful to them being gracious hosts and putting us up for the week. Heck, I'm even stoked to be manslaving to progress their house remodel/redecorate/rewhateveryoucallit.