Team Blitz devours competition, then vomits it up only to devour it again

Max Power< html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w= "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> < meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" > < style>

Team Blitz devours competition, then vomits it up only to devour it again

By Max Power, March 25, 2005

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The pre-race favorites for the Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon, the Colonial Road Runners and Final Kick Sports, anticipated an intense duel for the championship the following morning. Little did they know, they would be dueling for second place.

Led by a third place overall finisher Trevor "Basic" Cable, (2:32:56) in his first ever marathon, Team Blitz brought home first prize in a shocker. Close behind was Blitz's founder and leader, Bert Jacoby (2:40:34), co-founder Ryan Stevens (2:47:09), and math enthusiast Chris Healey (2:50:36), the young team averaged 2:42 per runner, over twenty minutes faster than second place Colonial Road Runners.

Team Blitz also finished first and third with two relay teams in the Marathon Relay, with Marshal Miller and Max Power clocking 2:30:55 for first and Benjamin "Jerry" Beiter and Thomas Antennuccii running 2:36:09 for third place.

The race started at 7:30 AM. Even with an early start time, the members of Team Blitz stayed focused. Cool and calm were not only words to describe the perfect weather, they were perfect adjectives for each one of Team Blitz's members, with the exception of Thomas Antennuccii who really had to urinate before the race. As he and Ingham sat on the bus to be transported to the halfway point of the relay, he squealed repeatedly, due to his bladder nearly exploding. Fortunately, he was able to urinate in the woods right before his leg of the relay started.

Team Blitz's members settled in at a conservative pace for the early miles. Then, Cable, known for his unpredictability and boyish good looks, showcased that unpredictability by dropping a 5:17 mile out of nowhere. Miller and Beiter, who were with Cable at the time, were shocked and amazed at such bravado from the rookie marathoner. While most runners would fall apart at this point, Cable kept hammering away, passing through the half-marathon split in 1:16:06. Miller and Beiter glided through at respectable times, handing off to Ingham and Antennuccii ten seconds apart.

Ingham and Antennuccii got straight to work, with Ingham quickly passing the first place relay and eventually the first marathoner for the win, and Antennuccii maintaining ground to secure third place in the relay.

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Jacoby, Stevens, and Healey all glided through the half marathon at more conservative times, a strategy that paid off in the end. Jacoby, working hard to keep his concentration, was able to pick up a LIVESTRONG band from the ground during the race, and credits it for all success he has had before, during, and after that day. "I could just feel Lance surging through me as I picked that LIVESTRONG band off the ground," Jacoby said after the race.

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Stevens initially ditched the idea of hiding a giant flying machine made out of a lot of bird feathers and glue at mile 17, and instead employed a strategy of gritting his teeth really hard through the last 10k and flying down the boardwalk for a storybook finish. Healey, who is the only other member of Team Blitz not named Jacoby to have run a marathon before, commented that he hit the wall hard, but was able to smash through it in a thrusting fashion for a huge PR.

George currently resides in the waste disposal units behind William and Mary's very own University Center. He is majoring in Economics.< o:p>