A Stetson Tour through the Woods

David Yon, August 5, 2010

When I agreed to work this race, I never dreamed I would get to meet Jack. But you have to understand any Dana and Susan Stetson produced event is going to bring something out of the ordinary into your life. So it was with last Saturday's Mike the Dog's Pampered Poodle 5K and Big Dog 5 Miler which was directed by Dana and Susan Stetson.

Jack, a puppy who seemed not quite a foot long, made his racing debut on Saturday. Jack got a rough start to life when someone reportedly tossed him out of a moving truck or burned him or poured acid on his back leaving him scared and one eye not working. He became a celebrity when the Democrat reported his story and his care and rescue by Bonnie Brinson, steward of the Cauzican Animal Rescue Center in Crawfordville and veterinarian Dr. Norman Griggs at the Shepherd Spring Animal Hospital.

Dana, who has his own special list of crashes, broken bones, and injuries, is the local running community's "counterculture" figure. Any race he directs will have an unusual twist and probably a good cause. And it will be tough. Mike the Dog's race came about as a result of Dana's efforts to befriend Mike the dog, one of the residents of the Cauzican Animal Rescue Center. Mike, a big dog, had fallen into the "unadoptable" class of residents at the Cauzican Animal Shelter and Dana became the canine's friend making the trip to Crawfordville to take him on runs and other adventures.

The race was the antithesis of all that today's carefully planned and goodie-bag filled road races usually represent. Instead Mike's race was: come, make a contribution and run something unique. No shirt, few awards and no official results. But find an experience you won't forget.

Since Mike was a dog no one wanted, Dana had to find a course no one had used before. He found it in the woods (The Wakulla State Forest) off the Bloxham Cutoff Road. The flier also told something more about the race: "For your convenience Mike's Race is a no frills fundraiser with primitive conditions." It did boast of a pine forest, two sinkholes and lots of wildlife. The most prevalent wildlife may have been the chiggers. Bags of sulfur were available to protect the runners' ankle from the pesky little creatures.

In addition to the pine trees in the forest, the course worked its way through sugar sand - the stuff that makes running and torture indistinguishable. The harder you work to get through it the more you grind in place. It also tends to swallow up the course markings intended to direct the runners. It seemed a large percentage of the 5K runners would up doing something closer to the 5 mile course while many of the 5 mile participants seemed to wind up running closer to 4.5.

And just before the race started, Dana took off on his bike with extra water coolers in tow (it was a miserable warm and humid morning) promising to keep ahead of the runners long enough to get the coolers set up. Despite his heroic efforts, reports came back of Dana sitting beside the trail with a broken wheel lifting the coolers off the trailer.

And as the finishers crossed the line, Jack the puppy was busy strutting around, showing off and proving hard times were not going to get him down. The human finishers mostly seemed to come home just shaking their heads and telling stories and laughing a lot. It was a hot humid summer morning and the goal for most was more about sharing the camaraderie of a Dana Stetson produced event than it was about running fast times. Jack was just fine with that.