Billy’s Scorecard

Billy keeps a scorecard.  Isn’t that what marriage is?  Nevermind.  No, he keeps a running list, a number, of how many of each race distance we have done.  Why, you may ask? Because he does not want me to have too many more than me, despite the fact that I’ve been racing longer than him.

Now, I am not a competitive person, especially when it comes to running races.  I am even happy when I come in last place, just because I finished!  And I never took Billy to be all that competitive, either.  Then I realized that even though we do our long runs together and he stays at my pace, the minute he puts that bib number on ALL BETS ARE OFF.  He races.  Every race.  And he beats me every race, which is fine. He also has strict instructions to be at the finish line with water for me.

I remember when this score-keeping started.  We did our second half marathon in October of 2011 and it wasn’t a good race for me.  It was horrible weather on the New Hampshire seacoast and my time was crappy.  At the time, one of my friends was running the NYC marathon and was going to do a new half marathon two weeks after my crappy one.  So I decided at the last minute that I would run with her, keeping her at a slower pace, and trying to improve my time.  Billy was supportive but not happy, which I didn’t realize at the time.  But he was clearly in planning mode because when I finished the race he told me we should train for a full marathon.  I had created a monster.  When we were training for the Portland Marathon last summer, Billy fell and broke a rib. I wasn’t allowed to keep training because then I would have one additional full marathon on my list that he wouldn’t have (I was fine with that!)  That one extra half marathon on my list bothered him.  For a long time if someone asked how many half marathons we had done, he would respond with “Me, 11.  She’s done 12.”

Honestly, at this point, I can’t tell you how many half marathons I’ve run. I also can’t tell you how many 10Ks, 5Ks or any other distance other than full marathons (5, training for 6).  I know that we are running a half marathon on Sunday!  But that’s about it.

On Friday night, Billy ran the Miles Over the Moon 4 miler put on by our club, Wicked.  I’ve never run it.  He has run it all 7 years. So he beats me on 4 milers 🙂

Thank you for your support!!  Below are our donation links.  Since I have a bigger network than Billy, I would ask that if you are going to donate to see which of us needs the money more and donate there.  It’s all the same cause and will help us to keep our minimum.

Shannon:  https://www.crowdrise.com/the-degregorio-family-foundation-nyc-2017/fundraiser/shannondowney3

Billy:  https://www.crowdrise.com/the-degregorio-family-foundation-nyc-2017/fundraiser/billyhutchinson