Sunday, April 15, 2007

Tournament in NC Ends Abruptly

A “King of the Beach” tournament held yesterday in Oriental, North Carolina was prematurely halted due to inclement weather. Billy Todd and James Ornton were vying for the coveted “King” status when pelting rain and 40 MPH sustained winds caused the majority of the group to end the tournament with one game left to decide overall winner. Reports claim that Billy Todd, having the same record as James Ornton, was one point ahead in point differential after the second game of three in the finals. He was declared the winner! James Ornton who has been known to sport a fiery temper, once spit in someone’s face during a game, has an enormous ego. His pride would not accept that Billy be declared “King” without actually having played the last game. What made if worse for James was that his partner for the last game was far better than Billy’s. After some plentiful bickering, and a bit of sand kicking, the four players agreed to play the remaining game to determine the rightful heir to the throne that day. With gusts now reaching 75 to 80 MPH the first serve of the fateful last match was blown eastward directly into the awaiting Atlantic Ocean and was lost. Because it was the last ball of the tournament (all other players left immediately), the tournament was halted… and Billy Todd was once again declared the winner!

In a related story… the Boston Marathon will still be held today. Runners will be running the entire race into a 30-40 MPH headwind. Officials are making a couple “stretch of the imagination” predictions on the outcome of today’s race. One, there will be no record setting time today. Two, many people will most likely drop from the race… or just not show… or may not even get out of bed. For me, I will now drive down to the bay to do a quarter mile run or so on already flooded roads for two reasons. I want to get a sense of what it will be like to run in the marathon today, and I want to evaluate Nike’s claims of the “Dry-fit” sports shirt. Supposedly the shirt is to keep you up 63% dryer. We shall see.

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