| Miracle
Performed on West Coast!
The first annual Bagel Run to benefit the University of California
Santa Barbara Hillel is now safely in the history books.
If ever there was a dubious proposition, the Bagel Run 5K
on December 8 was it. The Wanderers have enough difficulty
organizing any type of event even in the club's own backyard.
But then to produce a race on the West Coast? Well, that is
courting disaster.
Runners Await Start of Bagel Run 5k
But
then Wanderers' West Coast Bureau Chief Laura
"Smoke" Kalman and Rabbi Steve
Cohen stepped in, and something unexpected happened.
The Bagel Run actually worked!! There were more than 50 runners,
52 to be precise, and the atmosphere was fantastic.
Smoke was an absolute whirlwind contacting virtually every
organization and newspaper to promote the race, and Rabbi
Steve took care of business on race day handling everything
from registering runners to giving out medals, and in the
process making everyone feel good.
Smoke would have been named race MVP except for the directional
arrows with which she marked the course. The arrows ended
up looking often like hyroglyphics and sometimes required
a magnifying glass to understand. Click
here for an example.
The MVP honors instead went to her husband Randy
Garr, who was in charge of traffic control at the
first intersection from the Hillel. Randy performed with such
authority people wondered whether his true calling might not
be with the LAPD instead of on the faculty of UCSB.
The top finisher was Matthew Popiel of
Isla Vista who scorched the course in 19:39. Second and third
in the men's division went to Ronan Dulberg
and Elie Braun in 20:00 and 20:02 respectively.
Lindsay Steele captured the title in the
women's division with a time of 22:31. Finishing second was
Jessica Sherr in 23:44, and Rachel
Levine was third in 23:53. The youngest runner was
Daniel Richman who finished in 35:29.
The only person missing from the event was the Wanderers
own Michael "Eminem" Mugman.
Eminem, who is living in Santa Barbara this year, missed the
race because he was visiting back East.
The course for the Bagel Run was absolutely beautiful. Starting
at the Hillel house, the route then crossed the UCSB campus
and circled the lagoon on the campus and briefly touched the
shoreline before returning to the Hillel. The race took place
in bright sunshine with temperatures reaching an almost perfect
70 degrees.
The bagels were supplied by the Bagel Cafe
of Isla Vista, and the t-shirts were made by Magic
Mark of Roxborough with another dynamite t-shirt
design by Gary Sobalow of Philadelphia.
The
Bagel Run gallery
& the Peace
Pipe Ultra |
 |
Snake Bite checks out directions during the
run. With a few wrong turns the marathon was turned into
an ultra.
Rock takes a break to enjoy a view over the Pacific. |
It was lucky that the Bagel Run was such a success because
the Peace Marathon
held the day before was definitely being organized out of
the Murphy's Law operational manual. The race pitted Rock
Steady in a rematch with Snake Bite
to determine control of the running club between the Wanderers
and the splinter group Witches.
Measuring the race somehow went awry and the marathon morphed
into an Ultra of at least 30 miles. By the end of their almost
seven hours of labor, the pair had developed a new running
stride called the marathon shuffle where the feet are elevated
by an inch or less above the ground. This allows whatever
little motion is produced, to at least be directed forward.
The Ultra started in the foothills above Santa Barbara as
Rock and Snake raced through the neighborhood of the Rich
and Famous, then descended down to the coast before a few
more hills were encountered and another neighborhood of the
Rich and Famous was traversed. The duo finished up near the
UCSB campus. The actual time was not recorded because Rock
forgot to click the stop watch at the finish, but it is believed
to be somewhere between six and a half and seven hours.
During the race, Snake and Rock decided to smoke the peace
pipe and settle differences between the Wanderers and the
Witches, and now they are all one big happy family. The race
was renamed the Peace Pipe Ultra!!
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