Meeting Superstars Every Time I Leave the House
Today I met up with the Library Crew and with them was one of their buddies, Geoff Roes, whose laundry list of incredible feats includes winning the 2012 Iditerod Trail Invitational (350-mile race, non-stop, on foot, pulling a sled with all his gear, across Alaskan wilderness) and the 2010 Western States 100 in a course-record-breaking time of 15:07. While he wasn’t able to join us for our borderline-silly 5-miler along Boulder Creek we did get to chat for a bit beforehand. Like the fan-boy I am, I had awkwardly introduced myself to Geoff a few weeks back at the farmer’s market (he remembered) but this was more of a real interaction and he was just as nice and down-to-earth as all the other trail trompers everywhere else.
The super prestigious WS100 course record that Geoff broke had been set by Scott Jurek, who won Western States a staggering 7 consecutive times. I’d seen Scott in passing near Pawnee Peak back on August 12th but properly met him, too, about a week ago, also on a Boulder Creek run. In addition to being one of the hands-down greatest ultra-runners in history, Scott is a NY Time Bestselling author and world-traveling humanitarian.
These two guys are true icons in the ultra-running world and really supportive of anyone else who gets out there and gives the trails a shot. Who could be a cooler runner for a guy like me to meet while running? How about Frank Shorter, the 1972 Olympic Marathon Gold Medal Winner! Yup, just finishing up a typical run on the trail right by the house and I rolled up on Frank. Just him and me. I made my usual stumbling “Wow, you are so inspiring and I think you’re great and do you need any muscles massaged” sort of hello and he was nice enough to listen to me and wish me well. Looks like I’ll see him again tomorrow night at the Boulder Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and fundraiser for One World Running, a great organization started by Library Crew buddy, Mike Sandrock.
Just another week on the trails in Colorado. I will say that my star-stuckedness is starting to fade but I still totally appreciate the chance to soak up this experience.
Kind of Like Fun 
It took me a long time to get over that. I used to come home and tell my wife in an all excited tone: “I just saw ….!” She was of course nice about it but her response was typically, “and who is that?”
Enjoy the HOF show. I am sure Rock and MK are going to do a great job!
GZ – I think our wives would get along quite well. I just showed her the post-race pic of Killian and Anton from today’s race and she was, well, not too interested. I guess “superstar” is something of a relative term. I was quite familiar with “George Zach from the blog” long before I met you. Just nice to have such an inclusive community of folks to glom on to with the trail folks.