It's 20 Women's Half Marathons!

For many years, the WHM Web pages have listed the number of the event ("The Ninth Women's Half Marathon").  Those numbers were all consistent until last year.  At that time, I convinced myself that we had been wrong all this time. To me, it was obvious. We had not put on the WHM the first year we put on the Bull Run Run.

I remember vividly Chris Scott calling me with his crazy idea that we could put on an event for women -- supporting female running and getting chicks to run with us at the same time.  To me, that call came well after the first BRR, and Chris is not the type to put a run together without more planning.  (It was he who required that we have our first Fat Ass 50 in December 1992 as a tune up for BRR.)

So last year, we had the 18th WHM even though we had had the 18th in 2010.

When Keith Knipling did his recent makeover of the WHM Web site, he brought forward my listing of this year's run as the "19th."  Quatro, in his rave review of Keith's new site, questioned the 19.  Since I trust Q, I looked at it again.

In my extensive research, I found the smoking gun.  The vast VHTRC archives contain a "VHTRC SUMMARY BALANCE SHEET, CY '93."  That document lists the "Women's Distance Festival" with both expenses and revenue.  (It was "WDF" back then because it was part of the "Women's Distance Festival," a marketing promotion of Saucony shoes from whom we got money or something.) The first WHM was clearly held in 1993, this year's will be the 20th. 

The balance sheet is a fascinating trip down memory lane.  The VHTRC checking account had a balance of $246.85 at the end of the year.  In December 2011, the balance was about 100 times that  amount.  Our RRCA dues in 1993 were $122. In 2011, our dues were over $2,000.  (Dues are based on membership. We have more members now -- by a lot!)

Some explanations:

Del Passatore:  This is a very long story and has a lot to do with the formation of the club.  Short version: There is a big run in Italy called the Del Passatore 100k. Some well-connected Italian-Americans tried to put on an American version.  Working with them, we built it. No one came.

TRAC III: The TRAC was Joe's idea. It was a great one. A run on trails, more or less, across Virginia.  But we can never have it again.  Too many people would want to come, and they would all want GUs at the aid stations and prize money.

Dicker Arsch 50km: This was the second December Fat Ass (now the Magnus Gluteus Maximus).  The first one was le Grande Derriere. The second one was named in Deutsch.

T's and Singlets: Even back then, we had club shirts.  Some of us still have those shirts.