Ace

Club favourite Rob Evans, the man who never paid his club subs on time, despite printing his own coins, has been making money again. Not much new there of course, but for those of you he hasn’t collared, he’s in the final three to design the new two pound (£2) coin. So he’d like you to visit the Royal Mint site and vote for coin ’A’.

Firouz Mal King of the Hill!

As he doesn’t have his own printing press, Mal had to resort to charm and persuasion to raise £13,000 for Marie Curie Cancer with his recent London Marathon. That’s £500 per mile, and a lot of people to rattle a bucket at. This may be a club record. Now he’s off to New York. Watch those dentists, marathon man.

Distance No Object

Dave Headon is also chasing charitable people. He’s cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End for Ty Hafan. In the words of Bob Geldof, ’give [him] yer ****ing money’. Maybe now he will calm his training down, and stop showing the rest of us up. For those who don’t know, Dave recently moved north of 40, and won his first race, the Bettws 10k, which he claims he only entered to give his daughter an experience of running.

My First American Race

You may have noticed that we haven’t been down the club for a while. It all came a bit fast, and we now are residents of Chicago and getting used to life in the US of A, as of October 1999.

The worst thing about this report is the title, it should have been OurFirst Race, but unfortunately Sue had come back to the UK to sort the details of renting our house (3 bedroomed in Rhiwbina, if you are interested phone 20 624614). Thanksgiving is a BIG day here and there are a lot of "Turkey Trot Races" almost one in every town, and about 5 in Chicago alone.

Looked in the local sports mag and there was the Vertel’s (a running store) 8k, 9am on the 25th Nov. It was a sunny but cold day and I planned to get there early, register and do a warm up. Huh. Lost 15 mins finding a parking place and a heck of a lot of runners were already moving towards the start. I finally found registration behind a line (queue to Limeys) 10 deep and 4 wide. Somehow, I, and 4000 others, get to the start in time.

It was very different to races I’m used to; the number of women was up (nothing wrong with that) and the strength in depth in the male field was down. (Or, hey, I’ve improved! I was passing people quite regularly).

The course was flat (which after things like the Castles is a welcome relief) and all on paths around Lincoln Park, by the side of Lake Michigan. Each mile was well marked and had a person with loud hailer shouting out times as you passed. 36.02 not bad for me.

We will be looking for a club as soon as we get settled in, but it will have to go some way to meeting the welcome we got when we found Les Croupiers. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to say bye to everyone, we will be back and look forward to seeing you soon. If you want to e mail me the address is russell.stephens@core.com, my work telephone number is 312 906 3570 (we are not sure of our final address). If you fancy the Chicago Marathon (world best course), let us know.

Now we’re looking for someone who wants counters for a 40 mile track race (yes Mick I’ll miss that as well).

Ok, we’re really sorry that this hasn’t come sooner, but we can’t believe how quickly the time has passed since we moved over here. We are having a great time and are now really settled so visitors are welcome.

When we first got here, our accommodation was one block off Michigan Avenue (The main shopping road). A corporate apartment, white carpet, white walls: very different to Cardiff!! It was on the 42nd floor, on the corner of the building, so the views were amazing. We did have some bad weather up until March, but the building had a Gym with running machines and a swimming pool, so we were still able to do some exercise. Which was really important considering how much more we’re eating out, and the portion size here takes some getting used to. But we’re coping!!

The running scene here loses to the UK for standards, but they make up for it in numbers. The Shamrock Shuffle a 10k in March attracted horders of runners, and Sue came 5th in her category group and Russ came 7th in his. (46th out of 516 in his age group). A lot of the participants are fair weather runners, so the numbers are down to single figures if it rains/snows. But during the sunnier evenings it seems like most of Chicago are out running, walking, inline skating or cycling, and the trails are congested.

Sue is unable to work here, so she’s a volunteer at Lincoln Park Zoo. This is open to the public every day of the year except Christmas day, and is totally FREE!! The majority of people working at the Zoo are volunteers, although the keepers are employees. The zoo are pretty choosy about volunteers and their commitment. There is an application form, 2 references are required (and followed up), and then an interview with your chosen department.

This is our new ’kind of’ permanent address, we say ’kind of’ as we may be moving to one of three other places in the USA, but given the choice, Chicago’s our kinda town!!

Anyway the new apartment is on the 3rd floor of an older property near to Lincoln Park & the Zoo. All our furniture and belongings are here so it really does feel like home. Russ catches the train (called the "El" which stands for Loop). NO, we haven’t got a car!! We did have when we first moved here, but it was only getting used once a week for grocery shopping, and costing us $200 a month just to park. We rent when we go away, and catch taxis for almost everywhere else. We’ve made a couple of friends already, through work, the Zoo and of course the running.

But we are missing you all, so when are you coming to see us?? If you need a hand with flights and deals, give Sue a call, she’s pretty well tapped in to the deals on the net, but obviously the more notice the better.

Sue has also signed up to do an Aids Ride; this is a bike ride from St Paul in Minneapolis to Chicago. 500 miles in total over a six-day period. The ride has just under 2000 cyclists who have to Raise a minimum of $2300 to participate. Russ has done the fundraising while Sue has done the training. The problem (or not) is that Chicago is incredibly flat, so we’ve taken a couple of trips to Galena, just under 200 miles north west, where the countryside is very similar to Wales!!!

Our first residential USA triathlon was held in Galena, and all the cycle training paid off for Sue who got a 3rd in her age group. Russ did pretty well, having a bit of a spar with Randy, a new friend. Came out of the water behind, caught and passed on the bike, but Randy made a decisive move 400m to the finish line. They are both going to do a half Ironman in September, lets see what happens then!

Microsoft strikes back!

Last updated 27 September 2005

Last updated 27 September 2005

Last updated 27 September 2005

Ace

Contents

Rob Evans in the Money!

Firouz Mal King of the Hill!

Distance No Object

My First American Race

Microsoft strikes back!