Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

What's the best way to fight terrorism on 9/11? You can either scam Libyan terrorists with a bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts... or you can driving six hours through three states to watch four races! Here's a righteous recap of W and JS's trip to the 2010 Red, White and Blue Invitational and the 2010 Chic-Fil-A Invitational. Soundtrack is here.

We left my fortified compound in Morgantown at 6:30am and drove directly to McDonalds to pick up a Bacon, Egg and Cheese McGriddle and a large coffee (both were essential). We got up to Schenley Park in Pittsburgh around 8:00, in plenty of time for the guys race to go off at 8:50. The race was run on what was essentially a loop course. The start is at the end of a field on the top of a hill, the runners run across the field, down a short hill, across a road and then waaaaaaaay down a packed limestone hill. The hill they have to descend/climb is very long. If you hustle, you can catch the start and then make it to the bottom of the hill and see ~2000m mark. After the runner reach the bottom of this hill, they stay on the crushed limestone path and start their ascent. Again, if you hustle, you can make it from the bottom of the hill, over the top and catch a last section of their run up the hill. The path ends up at the field they started on. They then run one big loop, still on crushed limestone, around the field and finish. The loop at the end is very long, maybe 1,000m. You can watch almost the entire last 1,000m pretty easily. There is no admission fee and no concession stand.

This meet is huge, with almost 300 runners in the varsity guys race alone. The gun went off for the guys race and we ran down the hill to the ~2000m mark. The only WV team in the race was Morgantown, so that's who we were watching. Cody Pelliccioni came through around 8th, at the back of a pack of seven. The leader at this point would later fade back pretty far, if I recall correctly. Cam Greza came through in the 30s and then we had to start running up the hill to catch the finish. By the top of the hill, Cody's pack was down to about four guys and the eventual winner was a couple strides ahead of the other three. As they went around the long loop at the top, the winner stretched out his lead and Cody fought off the third guy, finishing in 15:23. Cam hung tough, finishing 34th.

The girls race went off promptly after the guys had finished. At the bottom of the hill, Sydney Pineault was around 12th and in a long string of girls. Brynn Harshbarger was moving up the field, back in the 30s. At the top of the hill, Sydney had picked off quite a few girls and was up to 9th, Brynn had charged up the field and was around 18th with a large pack of nine girls in front of her. On the long loop at the top, Sydney pulled out Old Painless and put a couple girls out of their misery, getting up to 6th in 19:06. Brynn worked her way into 16th at 19:29. The team managed 6th place out of 32 teams.

Immediately following the finish of the girls race, we jumped into the car. It was 9:50 and the AAA race at Chic-Fil-A started at 12:40. We pulled onto the interstate, got up to 88 miles per hour and blew through the state of Ohio. Then we got mildly lost in Mineral Wells, which is odd in a town with no stoplights.

The course at Mineral Wells is basically loops in fields, cutting in and out of some woods. Mostly flat, it can be very fast. We positioned ourselves at the one mile mark and could then jog to the two mile mark and the finish line. Both mile marks had clocks. The weather was great, with cloud cover setting in right before the gun first went off for the AAA races. There was a $4 Student/$5 Adult admission fee and a Chic-Fil-A (of course) concession stand.

The guys race started about ten minutes after we rolled into the parking lot. We were standing at the mile mark and Dayton McVicker came through in 4:57 with a large lead over Joe Kirtner of Winfield. Dayton came through two miles at 9:59 and won in 16:14. He denied that he stopped for a delicious chicken sandwich during that last mile. Kirtner got second by a pretty large margin over third place, in 16:52. Unbelievably, the Chic-Fil-A concession stand then starting selling chicken sandwiches two for one. Needless to say, we missed the start of the girls race.

Alyssa Scherich had such a large lead at the first mile that initially I thought she was lost and had cut the course. She maintained that lead for the duration of the race (19:37), while Emma Harrison got away from Erica Voreh for second. Parkersburg crushed all comers for both team titles.

All in all, it was a beautiful day and pretty fun to catch both meets. I think I used up my meet-watching quota for the rest of the month, so I probably won't make it out again until Times. I would encourage other WV teams to go up and give the Red, White and Blue Invite a shot at some point in the future. The competition is pretty intense, it's a well-run meet and it's early enough in the day that you can do other things. Chic-Fil-A was a good show, as usual, even though we missed all the early action. Would have been nice to have seen McCauley v. Harris, but we would have needed a time machine.