So ends another season of the Bill Roe All Comers summer track and field series! This 54th edition was far and away the largest year in All Comers history - we recorded 9,331 total race results by 4,512 participants in twelve weeks, and broke 1,000 entries in a single night for the first time ever! Thank you to all who participated, and a special thank you to our tireless volunteers - 112 individuals who contributed an estimated 2,500 hours of work to make All Comers 2023 happen. 🍊
In addition to the traditional track and field events, a series of specialty events were hosted as well this year including PR attempt races, the Beat the Coach Mile, and the ever popular Blue Jeans Mile. The image of a baker’s dozen athletes barreling down the home straight in denim for the honor of accepting the golden GOAT trophy is one not easily forgotten. Nor is the fact that Aimee Nogoy and Alex Vuyisich casually dropped winning times of 5:44 and 4:39 respectively in a pair of JEANS. A job well done. 👏
In the final meet of the 2023 All Comers series, Club Northwest may have outdone itself in its quest for quirky track fun. Last Wednesday featured three special events. And as far as special track events go, these were three to see firsthand.
The Mysterious Relay
It began with the Mystery Baton Relay. The instructions are pretty straightforward. It’s a standard 4 x 100 meter race. However, the usual baton was replaced with random items. What kind of random items? The official batons provided included at least one seemingly feasible option: an intact Pringle. The other unfortunate seven teams were relegated to carrying everything from loose sand to a cast iron skillet complete with a spatula to a fully constructed backpacking tent that Club Northwest’s own Sheridan Grant impressively managed to wield overhead with a grace none thought possible. Other items not previously listed include a 22-inch zucchini weighing eight pounds, pasta and pasta sauce (yes, this constituted a single baton), a 5-gallon bucket of water, and a pair of Nordic skis.
Upon seeing the hilarity of the assortment, and to ensure enough “batons” were available to span all teams across all heats, an array of unofficial batons was used including a pole vault pole, a broom, a javelin, a live selfie stick, and a small child. Well done to all our Mystery Baton relayers and the small child who very enthusiastically performed his role as baton.
Carbonation carnage
The excitement did not end there! As beer miles continue to gain popularity, the lack of liquor license did not dampen this spirit (pun intended). In place of the usual malt beverages was substituted the lightly flavored, yet fully non-alcoholic La Croix, whose excess of bubbliness would prove a novel athletic challenge for athletes and absurdly entertaining belch source for the spectators to hear.
The rules are simple: one 12 ounce La Croix must be consumed before starting each lap of the one-mile race. One 12-ounce, carbonation laden La Croix every 400 meters. Off went the gun, pop went the cans, and so began the 48-ounce journey. Six minutes and 48 seconds later, four hundred and eight seconds characterized by belchy strides, a dozen assorted flavors, a handful of vomits, and at least one expletive laden decision to pull out of the race for the sake of their stomach’s well-being, Aaron Ly would cross the finish with hands held high as the winner of the event. Well done, Aaron. 👏
A scorching, lactic finale
The final event of the evening was the Elimination 2 Mile, wherein each lap, 1/8th of the field (per gender) was eliminated, leaving just two heavily-lactic runners left to duke it out on the final lap. From the beginning, it was a hair-raising kick to the line in the last 50-100m, the intensity growing each lap until the penultimate lap with a scorching final sprint worthy of an Olympic 800m final, leaving just two men and two women to wearily muster up one more lap. Times were not collected for this race, but in the end, Club Northwest’s Mitch Rees-Jones and Seattle University’s Lili Hargreaves came out on top.
Just like that, we are once again at the end of another summer series. Thank you again to all who volunteered at All Comers. We can’t do it without your help. Thank you to the organizers of this event and those who tirelessly planned and orchestrated to ensure the success that it was. Thank you and congratulations to all the athletes who competed this year, and we hope to see you in 2024!
Written by Steve Harris and Mitch Rees-Jones
Photo credits: Zeth Peterka