More Marathon

The people on the far side of the metal barricade are about to finish the half-marathon. The guy with wheels on this side just rolled for over 26 miles!

A familiar face in the crowd. Yay, Meredith!

I was a little surprised that Sylvia spotted me in the crowd, but we've been together for so long that our ESP is synched-up very well.
We even finish each other's sandwiches.
Sentences.
Whatever.

We're all very proud of Sylvia, but a bunch of fake Elvii make for a more interesting picture than one of Selma trying to get her to eat a banana and some chips at the same time.



The medal is much nicer this year, if you can overlook the font size error.

Syl's recovery was much better this year--a short nap and we made it to the concert, unlike last year.
Always wanted to see Grand Funk Railroad, and even without Mark Farner they were solid and fun. Drummer Don Brewer was amazing--I guess all the years he's played with Bob Seger haven't turned him into a pussy.
Bruce Kulik, who usually wears Ace Frehley's makeup in KISS these days, played lead guitar.
Mel Shacher was as cool as could be on bass.

Los Lonely Boys were terrific until they started taking long jams with some random harmonica player, then trotted out cover tunes.
The best moment of the show was during a long intro to their 3rd song.
The drummer turned to the local crew's monitor mixer and asked for some bass guitar--his request was clearly audible out front.
I guess he didn't get any bass, because 20 seconds later we all heard "You ever done this before?!?!"
Hilarious!

I feel bad for monitor mixers because it's the hardest job in rock.
They get a lot of abuse, including beer bottles thrown at them by weak lead singers.
(Cough cough Don Dokken cough!)
Whenever I've been on a big show I always play dumb and "confess" to having no clue how to run a monitor board, which bumps me up to the main house mix.
It works out for the best, since I usually have the best ears on the crew.

Sylvia is a running machine!
13.1 miles would kill me.
And so would the dirty looks from the other runners when I stopped for a smoke break.