The 2006 version of the Red Bridge Ramble (KCMO) is now history. The weather on race day was absolutely perfect, and everyone that showed up to run were in good spirits. Forty-five runners entered, which surpassed last year's participation by 300%! We had quite a few newbie trailrunners who were "chomping at the bit" to get their feet wet (literally).

The race course is on the unpaved Blue River Parkway trail system. It crosses the Blue River 4 times and has a variety of different kinds of terrain to run on, which includes: wooded, rocky & rooty trails, open grassland, twisty single-track, and flat, fast dirt trails.

Caleb Chatfield, of Merriam Kansas ripped through the course in 54:58. Veteran trailrunner Kyle Amos followed in 2nd place at 57:02. Lightning-fast trail-newbie Susie Scheer took third overall, and first female in 1:00:45! Following them to round-out the top five were Rich McNally and Jeff Behrens. Second and third-place females were Angela Ballard and Rachel Westendorf.

A few awards were given out, including two to James Barker. He won the "lost completely beyond all possible reason" award, and the award for "most ticks." He also took a very good "competitive fall," (which I witnessed), but was surpassed in that department by Jeff "Trail Rash" Behrens. (I still owe you an award, Jeff).

Note: We had a slight timing device issue, so most of the times were off by a small margin. The order of finish is very accurate, though.

Special thanks to the volunteers:

Markos Jacquez - who helped mark the course with me (the night before the race until 10 p.m.), by actually running it.

Kyle Amos, Ben Reeves, and Caleb Chatfield - who helped un-mark the course.

Dave Suptic and a helper - Registration & finish line.

Lou Joline - half-way water station and starting line food.

Order of Finish

1 54:58 Caleb Chatfield M

2 57:02 Kyle Amos M

3 1:00:45 Susie Scheer F

4 Rich McNally M

5 Jeff Behrens M

6 "Good" Ben Reeves M

7 Jason Crosby M

8 Stuart Johnson M

9 Frederick Menninger M

10 Angela Ballard F

11 Eric Otte M

12 Rachel Westendorf F

13 Aubrey Appleman F

14 Charlotte Barksdale F

15 Emily Horn F

16 Kent Baker M

17 "Bad" Ben Holmes M

18 Deb Johnson F

19 Sherry Sehring F

20 Dave Rowell M

21 Mona Latimer F

22 Allison Baker F

23 Jonette Kilmar F

24 Gregg Lynn M

25 Kevin Maggard M

26 Christina Sipu F

27 Philip Wharton M

28 Kevin O'Sullivan M

29 Don Little M

30 Sophia Wharton F

31 Dave Hoefer M

32 Paula Keltner F

33 1:38:06 Lou Joline M

34 Hazel Mattews F

35 1:39:00 Susan Robinette F

36 Mary Donahue F

37 Anne Cook F

38 Bob Cook M

39 Beth Hilt F

40 Verna Troutman F

41 Jackie Defoe F

42 Gregory Mattews M

43 Steve Mattews M

44 Laura Gawecki F

45 James Barker M

I posted a few photos at: http://kctrailnerds.blogspot.com

Dick Ross took some great shots and has them on his website at: http://www.seekcrun.com/

His photos will probably be posted also (soon) at the KC Star website at: http://kcsweb.kcstar.com/projects/Community_Faces/

Happy trails,

Ben Holmes

Race Director

Trailrunning group site: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/kctrailrunning/

The information contained in this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s) and may be confidential, proprietary, and/or legally privileged. Inadvertent disclosure of this message does not constitute a waiver of any privilege. If you receive this message in error, please do not directly or indirectly use, print, copy, forward, or disclose any part of this message. Please also delete this e-mail and all copies and notify the sender. Thank you.

For alternate languages please go to http://bayerdisclaimer.bayerweb.com