Moi? A Maverick?

Ms. Presidente, Anna Sumrall Helm (she gets purple for BCRR) and I had an interesting e-mail exchange last evening. It was revealed that I - not in her words, of course - might be a maverick? Nah.

In October's Footprints, I wrote a story about the upcoming unveiling of a website that will make available to the public all of the Chevron Houston Marathon finisher's results. I talked to Jack Lippincott - the number one Chevron Houston Marathon veteran - and he mentioned what it takes for him to "vet" somebody's claim of being a veteran (which is 10 CHM finishes or more).

When I write, I typically aim for a chuckle or two. In this piece, I'm going to push the envelope just a little. Anna's reply was: "Eh, not funny enough to ruffle feathers, IMHO."

But I pointed out that I thought she misunderstood my use of the words "vet marathon runner".

Here is a paragraph or two of the article:

But the work to determine if somebody is a veteran is not only time well spent, it is getting easier and easier.
“The process has gotten less labor intensive in recent years, because of (the) electronic results on the Houston Marathon web site and MarathonGuide.com,” he explained. “So, only the oldest results now have to be looked up by hand.
“Of course, this is somewhat balanced out by the larger numbers of proposed Veterans each year. It probably takes 15-20 minutes to vet out each new name.”
Reportedly just a few minutes less than what was needed to vet marathoner and Republican Party vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

I don't hide the fact that I lean to the conservative side of the political spectrum - so the kicker is that I'm poking fun at the side that I'll probably vote for!

Heck, in the first month after I started my Footprints assignment almost three years ago, I took HARRA to task for the HEB Texas 10K Challenge in one of my RTN columns. I fully disclosed it to Anna right off the bat. She either didn't hear anything because nobody read my column in Runner Triathlete News nor cared -- or both.

So I chuckled when Anna responded, "Bah, do what you want. It's your neck. No one thinks I have "control" over you, anyway, so it sorta clears us both!"

In my mind, you have to push the envelope a little or you never get anywhere or accomplish anything. The thing is: I know who my naysayers are and I, quite frankly, don't give a damn. When they want to do my job: they can try it. And then we'll judge it all by the results. [Some of the problems may come from the fact that I don't write about them, that I just don't fall in line with the status quo or that they have to see my name on something every month in print.]

And why should I tend to the status quo? It's boring.

If I didn't work hard at what I do and if I constantly and obsessively bragged about what I did, it would be a different story. I'm very fortunate to do the things that I do and to have earned the respect of all of the people that I have. Luis Armenteros didn't send me the story of his workout with Galen Rupp and Kara Goucher for me to print it in last month's Footprints. He sent it because he thought I would enjoy it as a fan - even though he's twice as fast as I am.

I got Lisa Foronda to allow for me to use one of her pictures from that workout.

I asked Dr. Bob Hoekman to write for us in Footprints because I thought he needed to be in there, and his columns are very well-received.

Jack Lippincott has very willing to help me out.

I asked for and received some advice from Jon Warren on a couple of columns for Runner Triathlete News that I'm doing on Texas' top 30-and-under marathoners.

And I get comments like this from Lance Phegley, my editor, periodically: "I’m always amazed at the length of the news and notes that you can pull out when you need them. I know that sort of thing is not easy, especially when you have a lot of space to fill and that finding good info to even be able to put together the news and notes can be a pain in the ass."

My world's good - even if I can be a pain in the ass periodically.