July Leapfrog Handicap Results
Spain Trailhead
 
July's Leapfrog handicap turned out to be a great success.  No one was quite sure how it would be accepted, but nine teams (18 participants total) turned out for the event drawing several people whoe were first time handicappers for this event.  Those who were primarily runners had trepidation about the biking portion of the event being quite certain that they would crash or, even worse, be pathetically slow.  Those who were primarily bikers gave me estimated 5K times of "Oh,... maybe 25-35 minutes... I'm not sure.  I'm a really slow runner."  As it turned out, everyone finished just fine with no wipe outs.  Ed and Shannon's suggestion of summing the 5K times for the handicaps turned out to be a very reasonable way to handicap the race.  Six teams finished within four minutes of each other.  I must admit, I had been expecting a much wider spread. 
 
Then at the finish, whichever team member finished first had to wait for his or her team member, then both ran through the gate to the parking lot, jumped on a mat for the finish, and Shannon announced their place.  Okay, so some teams had a little confusion about getting to the finish mat, but everyone was eventually herded into the right direction.  Ed and Shannon recruited enough volunteers to make everything go very smoothly.  There were no complaints about getting lost anywhere on the course.  I heard some mention of 116 cones being borrowed from Fleet Feet with all 116 of them being retrieved after the race and returned.  Wow!  Talk about a lot of work.  After everyone finished the race, Shannon dispensed many prizes including a prize for first place, Chris Marten and Kristen Mullen; fastest team, Kent Gant and Matt Shepard; fastest masters team, Dennis Muirhead and Larry Ruggles, plus many door prizes (or open space prizes or whatever you want to call them.)  Many thanks to our hosts Ed and Shannon Zanelli who would like to make this an annual event.  Be sure to give them your feedback.  They would love to hear from you.  See you all in August at Fay Slattery's and Antonio Eppolito's house in the foothills!