Blue Balls and Glass Cutters Race Report 2013

Winter in Cleveland is always interesting. The Blue Balls and Glass Cutters 5k (BBGC) has earned it's name for a reason. We cannot host this event on a warm day... it just isn't right.

So luckily the date we chose this year ended up yielding snow covered ground and cold temps!

The weather was mid 20's and sunny. It was actually very comfortable running weather.

One of my favorite places! There are great hiking

trails around here too.

Everyone trying to keep warm pre-race.

There were 15 participants that ran this year! Everyone had their times recorded and got last minute instructions from (in my opinion) one of the best and most organized race directors out there.

We lined up at the official race start (heather's line in the snow) and we were all off!

The course was the same as last year and messed with people and their predictions. It is very hard to determine what your finish time will be when you know that 1.55 miles is all uphill at various inclines only to turn around and then speed downhill to the finish!

We had last year's winner, Mike, return to defend his title and course record of being off by only 6 seconds last year! However, he was no competition for Ben who was off of his prediction by ONLY 5 SECONDS!!! I am thoroughly amazed at how close so many of the participants were this year.

2013 Results:

Name:	Prediction	Finish	Difference
Beal	29:06	28:41	0:25
Megan	34:30	32:44	1:46
Brian B.	33:31	29:44	3:47
Dana B.	33:28	29:48	3:43
Susan	33:01	31:31	1:30
Matt A.	36:29	37:12	0:43
Angie	33:02	31:30	1:32
MattyO	27:24	28:41	1:17
Erica	29:30	29:06	0:24
Ben	26:00	25:55	0:05
Tim	36:05	34:56	1:09
Mike	24:15	24:44	0:29
Vagn	25:10	27:46	2:36
Darryl	30:30	31:02	0:32
Traci	29:30	29:49	0:19

So Ben ended up winning followed by Traci and then Erica! We had T-shirts made for the winners this year to accompany all the swag and prizes!

Afterwards we were on to the Chili cookoff!

There were 6 entries again this year and just like last year I was shocked at how different every chili was!

We had two "white chilis" (chicken chili), 1 jailhouse stew, 1 normal chili, and 2 vegetarian chilis.

In the end, Darryl won the chili cookoff w/ his vegetarian chili (and trinidad scorpion peppers) followed by Heather and her Jailhouse Stew in second place. I am never certain if the spiced cider (w/ rum) alters people's votes or not but we definitely put a hurting on that rum bottle this year!

Thank you to everyone for coming out and making this such a great event. Every penny gets donated to charity, so in the end not only is it a great time and an excuse to party, it is for a great cause too.

Thanks for reading!!!