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These are essays by VHTRC members. If you want to contribute one, e-mail Anstr at: anstr@att.net. I reserve the right to edit contributions but will show you all edits before I post your material. ^Note

These are intended to be thoughtful, helpful, sometimes humorous comments on the VHTRC trail running scene. They are more permanent and polished than a post on a listserv, but still have the immediacy of the Web. The opinions expressed in these essays are those of the authors, not of the VHTRC, its officers, employees, stockholders, advertisers, lawyers, janitorial crew, underwriters, undertakers, or its parole officer.

Items are listed in the inverse order in which they were published on this site. They are not in the order of the events they describe.

Stone Cat 50 Mile and Marathon Trail Races by Tom Corris

Guidelines on Submitting Material: Please send your material by e-mail (anstr@att.net). I would prefer a text file. Don't do any fancy formatting as that will be lost when the file is put into html. I can read Word documents if you insist on supporting that monopolist Bill Gates who caused this big recession that we are in. (Or did George Bush cause the recession? I seem to remember low unemployment and a big surplus when Bill Clinton was president.)

The whole point of the Internet is that things are connected. That means there is no need for one thing to be two places. If your piece is somewhere else on the web, it shouldn't go here. I can link to it, however.

Your submissions should be written in English. For the most part, I have received very well written essays. They put to shame the writers that I edited at my former work. Those writers were paid to write, but they did not do so very well.

Since your name will be on your essay, I only rarely edit your work and will tell you if I have done so. The following, however are like fingernails on the chalkboard to me, and I will change them:

Cite and quote are verbs, not nouns. Citation and quotation are the noun forms.
Access is not a verb.
Everyone and words like it are singular. Singular means singular. Words that modify or refer to a singular word are also singular. So it's "Everyone brought his ball to the game." Want to be politically correct? Use his or her or you can be real cool and say, her or his, or just her, but not their.
Try not to screw up the "Give the ball to whoever wants it" thing. The object of the preposition to is the entire clause, not the word whoever.
Transpire means to give off vapor through a membrane. It does not mean to happen.
Washington has the ball on its 10 yard line. The Redskins have the ball on their 10 yard line.
This is not the West Virginia Happy Trails Running Club, so you ran well not good.
It's "as I said," not "like I said." ("Winston tastes good as a cigarette should!")
Remember Strunk and White's first two rules. It's "red, white, and blue" (comma after all three words in series) and "John Dodds's report" (the singular possessive ends in 's even if the word already ends in s).
You can screw up capital/capitol because I don't know the difference either. I know that the building is capitol because the dome looks like an "O," but I forget the rest.