do you have a nickname???

the folks in oregon have a wide range of nicknames... (ok, some live outside of oregon) i think L.B. (Lord Balls) started this thing a few years back. or maybe it was Dot that started it after L.B. passed through foresthill without thanking her for being there???

i'm not like the fast ones but i too have earned a nickname... how did this happen??? well it was at AC 100 last september.

this was the first time i had ran this race. i had heard some great things about this race from craig thornley, a.k.a. LB and from stacy, and bushwacker... (mike below, yea he's doing hardrock again this year. wearing a skirt there bushwacker???)

(i'll call stacy ms. sparta after having a stellar race at spartathalon, 152.8 miles in 31:25:59 for second place and the highest female american placing ever in greece.)

i knew going in that i wasn't fit. i hadn't trained much since june after states was cancelled. i thought waldo would help me prepare for AC but i think I was perfecting running really slow for a long time there also, running DFL for hours.

i was running with chris thornley for a few miles at AC, a.k.a. Balloon Knot. and we would get into aid stations together to see Katie and L.B.

(chris and katie above. l.b. at mac forest 50k bragging about the haggis he made at the aid station) (or was it the whisky he brought???) katie and L.B. kept asking me if i was taking my salt and if i was cramping. "hey, you can't cramp running this slow", I said. but each time katie wiped all the salt off my face at every aid station. i wonder if Laurie Thornley taught her this??? Laurie wipes everybodies face at maiden lake aid station at waldo every year saying, "you have to look good when you finish", (mile 55 at Where's Waldo 100k.)

back to AC...

i loved this race, it wasn't hot, i loved the views and the single track was awesome. i was slow and i walked all of the last 10 miles but i didn't care. i had a great time with the brown bear at 1:10am near the camp ground. we got up close and personal... well for me we did.

it was fun to hear how hal , rod , and prudence did

that day. (both winners that day and both from oregon at the time)

(photo by glenn tachiyama of tom and prudence)

. i just had a fun time running and taking pictures until katie told me to lighten the load and get rid of the camera. it is a great race.

the nickname... well, it came a few weeks later. apparently, B.K. and L.B. were discussing the name "coral reef", yes, because of the salt on my face all day. then L.B. put the name in the Sarah Palin baby name generator and low and behold... out spits "Seagull Junker". so there it is... that is how i got my name.

so, maybe if you live in oregon you will aquire a nickname??? i wonder what neil olsen's name would be after being the 100k trail champion at waldo last year finishing with two different shoes and two different socks??? anybody???

what is your nickname???

seagull junker