Discussion: 11 Days and it All begins!

Day 2 will be The Stampede, which I reckon is the biggest mass started O' race in the US at a distance that approximates Red. If all the folks who have already signed up for this particular race, it will be the largest crowd ever, and we may have to bulldoze some boulders to make a large enough Start arena. Or just lasso them and drag them off using a sturdy Cowboy horse.

Big Eddie Bergeron has been ruling this race for years, but he's not signed up so that will leave a wide open race field.

Just like last year, the Stampede will be run on the venerable Plutonic Pleasures, but much of this year's race will be in a section of the map that basically hasn't been used. There'll be two loops runners will take in varying order, and then a final loop to see who can kick it home best.

And it will be so much fun that when folks who weren't there hear how good it was, they will weep.

An official song has been selected for the 2006 Rocky Mountain 1000 Day, and the runnerup song "Taxman" (by the Beatles' George Harrison) just barely lost out to a version of "Hideaway" played by Stevie Ray Vaughn. Holding to tradition however, controls will be set and hung in typical 1000 style and will *not* be hidden.

Hang 'em high!

So when are we going to have an O-Manager for the 1000-Day?

I heard the maps with the courses for the 1000 Days are published on a secret web site. What is the link again?

When are we going to have a young jfredrickson at a WOC?

Who knows, I might make a surprise appearance one of these days...

The day you go, I'll go back ;-)

Maybe John could pretend to be Tero? Nobody will know and he will be as fast as the French wunderkind, just by association. I am sure Tero likes to hang out in some nice Danish coffeeshop with a large coffee and some Danish croissants while you do a cameo for him. And next year you will be there as yourself.

Or he could go as jfredriksson.

Never!

Rock on Barbie! If you're going to be there next year I'll start training to make the team :)

Sorry to hear Big Eddie will not be there, but that hardly qualifies the race as wide open. Barely ajar, maybe. There would have to be lots more defections before wide open would apply!

Young Fredrickson, start training. Ukraine here we come!

Speaking of Ukraine, John, when are you going to spend an extended time in Norway again. Or, for a state-side substitute maybe you and the other young guns could go to school in Laramie. Then you could train, eat, dress, meet skog nymphs, etc. just like the Swampfox.

Oh gees and then have an army of little Swampfoxes... sounds scary to me.

I think it sounds cute.

I am definitely going to be spending more time in Norway in the future. Unfortunately college is sort of locking me in place for the moment. I have actually been contemplating dropping down near the Fox's den at some point and shadowing him in his training regimen. Do you think I could learn anything other than how to vilify the local wildlife?

Well, you better hurry it up then. I am about ready to put the O' shoes away and tug on some bib overalls, and kick back on the porch and pick on my guitar all day long, and serenade the local skogs nymphs. I will eat whatever I want and will probably balloon up to 4 or 5 G in a matter of months. And nobody will recognize me anyway because by then I will have grown me a real good G beard. I won't let it get so long as it gets all tangled up in the guitar strings and such and interferes with the sound mechanisms, but I reckon it will be long enough. Some nights I will invite over some of my former attack badger enemies and we will sip cheap whiskey way into the evening and laugh about how we used to git after each other. Yup! It's going to be some fine easy livin' days ahead!

A fat Swampfox - that's the best one I've heard in a long time!!!

I'm picturing ZZ-top with a new guitarist.

And the stage crumbles under his weight...

4 or 5 g might not be so much if the g keeps plummeting. The stage may hold up just fine.

Well, you know, they don't build stages like they used to. Plus, you have to calculate for possible critical structural damage from hongry Formosan termites.

Anyway, it doesn't look like Fast Eddie will be in attendance either, and with both Eddies out of the way (remember, they were first and second last time around), I'd think that leaves a pretty wide open race field.