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Meet the waterboy!

The scene at Mile 24 of the GO! St. Louis Marathon earlier today reminded me of a scene from a Three Stooges movie, the one where Moe cries out for water, not once, not twice, but three times, only to get water dumped on his face.

While there were plenty of cries for water, there wasn't too much too much slapstick humor at the Mile 24 water station.

How did I get to be a water boy? I owed my friend Doug Kaufman a favor. Doug served as a volunteer nine of the first 10 Tour de Stooges bicycle rides, and he needed people to work at the station. Doug is leading a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training for the America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride at Lake Tahoe. While most of the team showed up, he still needed help from me and other friends.

After a quick lesson in how to hold a cup so the runners can grab them without spilling most of the contents, I caught on and only missed a couple of handoffs.

The celebrity at this year's GO! St. Louis Marathon was no other than Kristin Armstrong, the former wife of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Kristin -- shown in a photo from a couple of years ago -- spoke at the pre-race pasta party Saturday night, and she decided to stick around to run the half-marathon.

Unfortunately, I didn't see her in action, but I can tell you how she did. She ran the half-marathon in 1:40:47, good for 478th place overall, 78th place among females and 10th in the 35-39 age division.

It was also cool to see one of my Belleville News-Democrat copy desk colleagues, Steve Mainer, run the event. He ran the full marathon in 3:46:36, good for 397th place overall, 334th place among men and 33rd in the 45-49 division.

Congratulations to all who completed the marathon and the half-marathon today. Anyone who can finish these races deserve all the credit they can get!

Labels: running, St. Louis

Roger 1 comments 11:16 PM

Comments:

Roger,
It was great to see you out there yesterday. You probably didn't recognize me in my dazed 24 mile look. Greg Hoffman

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:17 PM

 

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