Are you ready to rrrrrumble!?

The alarm clock is not supposed to go off at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, but I had a job to do. The job was to go cover the 'Peterson Ridge Rumble' a local long distance trail run.

I covered the 'rumble' last year as one of my first freelance assignments. I really wouldn't call it an 'assignment' per se, it was more like volunteering to spend your day taking pictures for name recognition, and just the fun of shooting masochistic people who choose to run 20 and 40 mile distance along mostly muddy trails in our beautiful national forestland.

This year I contacted the event organizer, Sean Meissner, asking him if he had anybody shooting the event this year. He replied that he hadn't and would love have me come out and shoot it. Last year one of my shots ended up in 'Trail Runner Magazine,' my first publication in a national magazine.

Most events like this are run on a shoestring, so getting paid is not much of an option. The hope is that you can hand out enough business cards, or the event organizer lets the runners know there will be a photographer out on the course taking pictures of smiling runners, grunting their way through another leisurely 40 miles.


After spending the better part of five hours on the course and taking over 300 shots, I am now in the process of uploading the shots to my web page, where hopefully a few of the over 400 runners will venture over, look for their mugs, and plunk down a few bucks for a picture of themselves sweating, spitting, and picking their noses, all to help feed a photographer in need of an income.

Whether they do or not, really doesn't matter. This is what I do now, and I love doing it. I got some very nice shots and I hope some of the runners appreciate the effort put forth to drive from location to location on the course, trying my best to get as many of the over 400 runners as I could.

Congratulations to the participants yesterday. To run those distances are amazing to me. Some of the runners remind me of the Eveready Bunny, just chugging along, pounding their drum, in a world all of their own. I couldn't do it, nor do I want to. What drives these  people is admirable and I hope to see them next year.