All For The Thin Mints
Here's a throwback from shop owner, Trey, to a race from 2009 in Rabun, Georgia.
"While warming up at the start line I asked the race director how hilly the course was and with a thick twang he replied, 'We's in Nawth Gawrgia that should tell ya sumpin'.'
Obviously, I had run in the area quite a bit, so the question may have been rooted more than anything else in start line anxiety. Truthfully, I was running the race to win the copious amounts of Girl Scout Cookies given to the overall winner, so I didn't really care about the profile, conditions, or time.
At the start line about fifty people lined up, including a man toeing the start line in jean shorts, no shirt, and a sun weathered camo hat with a large gold fishing hook clipped to the brim. The race director spoke a few words about having a good time and that we would be following a race van so we didn’t get lost. If you’ve heard anything about my inability to stay on course at road races you would appreciate the comfort I took in this piece of information. A dilapidated dusty blue van, with home tinted windows, and well worn tires pulled in front of the start line and we were off.
In the first mile we went from asphalt to gravel, passed a good looking ceramic toilet, and then ran into a hill that didn’t seem to end. As I crested the hill in first place the van was nowhere in sight, but the road took a sharp dive straight down. It looked like it went on for miles, but just in sight of the horizon I noticed a four way intersection with a cone and an arrow directing the runners to the left. “Perfect!” I thought. “No one in sight and this must be the half way point.”
Rounding the sharp left turn, which was a blind turn with overgrown shrubs on the corner, I came about two feet from running into the back of the blue van. The lead van had broken down. Taken off guard I stopped and just stared with confusion about what to do. My standstill didn’t last long, though. The driver leaned out the window and with an amazingly stereotypical southern twang and excitement yelled, “Keep on goin’! I’ll catch up wit ya.”
Lacking a better idea I took off down the gravel road. After passing a few branching streets I started to wonder where the hell I was going. To the driver’s credit, however, I started hearing the hum of an engine lacking oil -or parts, or something- chasing me down like dog going after a rabbit. As I turned my head to look the dusty blue van, with a whirlwind of gravel dust, greeted me. The exuberate driver hanging out the window, waving his left arm, hollered with joy, “I told ya I’d catch ya! Yeah!”
The gravel dust…yeah, I’ll never do a color run after that moment. I can’t imagine it feels much different. Not to mention the amount of dust in my mouth made cotton-mouth feel like an oasis. The van sped away, thankfully not breaking down again, and it even left an easy to follow trail of dust in the air to run under like a sprinkler.
Crossing the finish line in first place, I was greeted with enthusiasm by everyone and given this coffee mug and got to pick five or six boxes of Girl Scout Cookies to take home. I took one kind, my favorite: Thin Mints. Every time I sip coffee from this mug I get a quick memory of that blue van broken down in the middle of a gravel road. Love it.”
