I think I like the folks who brought up the rear of today’s Historic Half Marathon the most.  You have to have a special feeling for them I think since their measure is taken not by the minutes between start and finish but by the courage that gets them to the end of the course. Below you will see the first runner that passed us in front of the hospital today. I don’t know if he won or not but this was at about the 10.5 mile marker and he was so far ahead of the next few runners and running so easily it’s hard to see how anything other than an injury could have kept him from winning at that point.

As I see from today's paper he did indeed win the men's event.

I resolved to stay to  witness the efforts of the last runners in the race and here they are! Note the strained smiles which seem to be asking.  "Are we having fun yet?"


And this was my favorite shot of the day. This young Marine  told me that they have a motto at Quantico, "Pain is just weakness leaving the body!"