Most people who do a lot of races have seen their fair share of unflattering or funny race photos. You’re making a funny face, you have bad racing form, there are too many other people in the shot… There’s one race where my buddy Chris, who was with me the entire race, wasn’t in a single photo, though his left arm was in a couple photos of me.

I don’t often buy race photos, partly because I do a lot of races, partly because I don’t photograph well in races. (The Country Music Marathon photo posted on this blog is an exception.) But I decided I wanted a nice finish line photo at this year’s Flying Pig.

As I raced down that final straightaway to the cheers of thousands, I actually wove in and out of people and planned where to be in the street so that no one would be in front of me for the photo.

A few feet away from the finish line I put on my best smile and tried to look like a racewalker when two people came up along my right side and jumped in front of me!

I was pretty stunned at the time and irritated, though now I can laugh. I just assumed that they had ruined the photo. (I’m in the green shirt.)

The race photos are online today. In them you can see those two people come up beside me and jump in front. To add to the bad photo, there is a woman at the bottom pushing a wheelchair in front of the finish line as I crossed. Though the people didn’t block me entirely, combining that with the wheelchair, I’m not buying a photo. Besides, in at least one of the photos you can see me sneering at those people. Not my best look! http://www.runphotos.com/browse.cfm?race_id=157&bib_number=13540&searchword=&subFind=Find+Photos

As for a good finish line photo, I’ll try again at the Air Force Marathon in September.

Photo copyright TSC Graphics, 2009.

(226)