near death experiances can be fun.

last Saturday was the 1st running of the alton half marathon. Renae sang the national anthem and did a great job. i was a lead out bike for the race. my job was to pace some of the lead runners and try to make sure things go well for them (ie they stay on course and people get out of their way). i ended up pacing the winning woman. we were on a section of the course that was on a 4 lane divided highway. they had blocked off the south bound side of the road and had all car traffic diverted to the north bound side. so we continually heard cars and didn't think any thing about it. we were going along just fine, i was about 8 feet away from her at most, when a car suddenly went between us at 40 + miles per hour. no horn, no warning at all. it only missed us(me on one side of the car she on the other) by a couple inches. no one knows how the car got on the course. the road was blocked with a bunch of big orange cones and a cop car parked with its lights on. it was very close. i may have yelled at the car and shook my fist at it(i will neither confirm nor deny that i had a finger of that hand raised). well she went on to win for the women(a 6.69 pace for a half marathon) and i lived to tell the tail(by grapthars hammer).