It's On

In a couple weeks Irish Fest director Laren Mahoney, festival vice president Rory O'Connor and myself will be heading to Milwaukee for that city's great Irish Fest. As part of that weekend's events Laren and I will both be running the 5K Run To Irish Fest to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. Rory, being a lot smarter than either of us will be sleeping in like a sane person that Saturday morning.

Now I loves me some Laren. She's a great friend, a fine person, a hard worker and a credit to her fest. She's a delightful young woman and a joy to work with. But I will kick her Irish behind in this race, just as I did when the Kansas City Irish Fest team ran the Susan B Komen Race For The Cure last year. I will leave her sobbing in the streets like a frightened little girl. Laren of course, being delusional, will tell you otherwise. She'll point out minor details like that she's much younger, healthier, faster, has better shoes, blah blah blah, whatever. She's so confident in fact that she's proposed a contest. You pick the winner of personal grudge match and the difference between our finish times. Closest guess wins a full day pass to The Snug, worth a cool hundred bucks. If it helps your estimating skills the difference between our times in last year's race of the same distance was I think something like 17 seconds. Oh and I won, did I mention that? Keep in mind too the difference in our ages. Laren is like 20 and I'm almost 70. So I have all those years of experience on my side, too. It's really not even fair.

Send your guess to Jeff at info@kcirishfest.com. Put the words "5K Race Contest" in the subject line. Enter any time between now and the starting gun, Saturday August 15th at 10:30 AM Central Daylight Time. One entry per person only please. Remember you don't need to guess our finish times, just the margin of difference between Laren and me. In the event of a tie, we'll flip a coin. Winner will be announced after we get back.

In the interest of fairness, I'm inviting Laren to guest blog to make her case. I doubt that she'll accept though. She's not much of a competitor. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a quick 8 miler before breakfast.