Route 66 10k Run - Edwardsville

 

The Metro Tri Club (aka Team Godzilla) was once again asked to host a water stop at the Rt 66 10K Run. This year was a new and improved year for the water stop though, and that’s because there was a little competition going on, the best water stop would win 150 dollars. So you know how competitive this team can get, we budgeted 300 dollars to buy supplies so that we could win 150 dollars. The competition didn’t know what was going to hit them, both the runners and the other water stops. To win such a competition we needed a fearless leader, who had vision, strength and leadership, to pull this off. Enter Doug Bristow!

 

Doug pulled out all the stops, in his vision there were signs, body parts, smoke, squirt guns, silly string, music and of course water and Gatorade. As a runner coming toward the 4 mile mark, you would first see the sign, detailing exactly how Godzilla got his kicks on Rt 66.

  

 Then you would see all the runners that didn’t live through the last race. 

 

Next you would run, if you dared into the mouth of Godzilla, hopefully you could run fast enough to make it through, one runner didn’t and became impaled on a Zilla fang.

 

If you made it into the mouth, you had to then run through the fog or as I call it Zilla bad breath. It must not have been too bad though, because the wind kept blowing it away. We need to rethink the fog next year. On the way out of the mouth of Zilla, you were made aware of the upcoming water and Gatorade.

   

Runners now came upon a team of mercenaries that were waiting and ready to make sure they were cooled down.

  

Zilla also greeted runners with a smile.

  

 The DJ blasted music, including our clubs favorite tune “Go Go Godzilla”. 

 

Even Finn the youngest Zilla was on hand for this, he didn’t want to miss a minute of the fun.

 

And if you were lucky and made it through the matrix of zillas, you actually were handed a nice cool drink.

 

If you made it out alive, Mike the club Scrooge McDuck was on hand to tell you “they went that way”, and he didn’t even charge a fee for the information.

While so many volunteers were busy having some fun of their own, one volunteer was working hard to keep all the cups cleaned up off the trail. It’s a good thing that at least one Zilla has a work ethic.

It was not all fun and games though, I mean hundreds of runners came by needing beverage assistance and if they were really lucky and were a club member they got even more assistance than they wanted. The first guy through was the lead biker, Al, he was also videoing the water stop on his way by, I hope he didn’t video anything illegal.

 

Then the runners started running through with Bill in the lead followed by Carl and Shane. Bill tried to go incognito, as a few other Zillas did, but he was caught.

   

Shane was moving so fast that the excellent photographer, as good as she was, could not get a clear photo of him, he was just a blur moving too fast for photos.

  

Then there were more Zillas, who were blasted with water and silly string, but they all took it in

 stride.

   

Chris came through, he is one of our Zilla’s son, thinking he could sneak by, but it didn’t happen.

 

Chris’s uncle Rob also came by, it’s a family affair with those Shaw’s.

 

Of course there was one guy that showed up to the game looking like a runner, but it was really a sneak attack on the water stop, can you believe it, some guy in an afro carrying a super soaker just shows up out of nowhere and starts shooting. Well, he had no idea what he just ran into and he was quickly taken down by the team. The thing is, this guy looked suspiciously like Fat Albert, Oh, I mean Pat Albert.

  

And no one was exempt from being shot by the super soaker, the middle of the pack bike marshals came through, Andy riding tandem with Zach and after a blast from the gun, Zach had to dry his glasses off.

  

What would a Zilla water stop be, if not an all out water war between teammates. Even the club president was wet, but Chris was trying to win the wettest volunteer race.

But, we all know that there was no way either Mike or Chris were going to win this contest, the win goes to Keith, China and Madison!

 

I know you are wondering, who won the contest…. Why Team Godzilla of course! Update, I was told that we had won the competition, but some further info has come in and we were actually second to the Edwardsville Tiger Track Team I think.  I can't believe we got beat, oh well, all I have to say is we will BRING IT next year, you won't beat us twice.

So let me get serious for just a second, although this looked like it was just a big Team Godzilla party, it really was a race and there were so many people that worked hard to pull this off. Metro Milers was the host and they did a fantastic job. Fun was had by all, well except for the two bikers who stopped right in the middle of the trail next to the water table where they decided that they wouldn’t move, making handing out water difficult and blocking the trail,  making it hard for the runners to navigate the race route. All because they felt like runners should not be taking up the entire width of the trail. I mean, I can see why they were all PO’ed. One day a year for 90 minutes they have to carefully ride a 3 mile section of the trail and be aware that a race is going on. Oh, I would be so mad too! So I guess next year we should invite them to work the water stop, then they could have fun and get a ride in before or after the race. Remember treat people like this with kindness, they must have a pretty tough life if something like people getting fit, and being happy on a beautiful day bothers them so much. I actually took a photo of them and was going to put it in my post, but thought, wouldn’t that make me just like them, so no photo. (ok, I’m climbing off my soap box now).

Great job to the race director, Metro Milers and all the volunteers! See ya next year.