Sent to me by photographer Thomas Benjamin
Jim, just finished reading the article you posted on the Dublin Distance Festival. I just wanted to add that my 2 years covering the race I witnessed one of the truly amazing performances in that race. It was not by one the HS athletes.
in 2017 I was there from the first race around 7 am til the last race after dark at around 8:30 to 9:00 pm. I took several breaks of perhaps 45 min each plus sitting in my race chair during most of the longer races. I had to take 3 restroom breaks and each time I returned for the start of the next race, Bob Shor was always there. Toward the end of the evening it ‘dawned on me’ that I’d never seen Bob take a break. I didn’t think this was humanly possible. After the final race (Elite Boys 3200m) as everyone was in the process of leaving, I mentioned to Bob that I hadn’t seen him take a break and I wondered when he did given the very short intervals between races (now down to 22 seconds). Bob said he never really did! He started every single race !! I asked how was this even possible and he advised that he had a special regime to eliminate restroom trips and he had his own special dietary meals in his cooler.
The exhaustion level I felt after arriving at 6:30am til the finish at 9:00pm was even worse than running around the Field at Hayward for the XC MOC. Even with his explanation, I still don’t know how he did it, and we were born in the same year. I’m now almost 82.
Here’s an article I kept from Chris Williams the Race Director on what Bob mean’t to the race.
Cheers, Tom Benjamin
