At the inaugural Atomic, a new name came out of the ranks and blew our course time estimates out of the water.  Only miles from the finish line, this team was neck-to-neck with the course leaders and mistakenly took a wrong turn which placed them on a prohibited route to the finish.  The resulting penalty put them in 5th place – still an impressive finish for that race considering Tim was suffering from a knee injury, Jason took a stop for a nap after throwing up on the final trek, and Anna was carrying not only her pack but Tim's and Jason's as well on the last half all the way up to the mystery finish.  This year, team Shake-A-Leg Miami is back as team Green Paw Adventure Sports to exact their revenge on the course in an attempt to claim the top finish they sampled the sweet taste of a year ago.

Tim and Anna are high school sweethearts who began racing together in 2004 as college students in Wisconsin.  They moved to Southern Florida where they were joined by Jason, who serves as their in-race marriage counselor, 2 years ago.  Last year was the team’s first really successful year, and they hope to follow up on that by maintaining their place in the top 10 teams nationwide, competing for the win, and improving on a national scale.

With 11 Floridian teams registered this year, we might be able to test Josh’s Floridians vs. Georgians theory.  When Tim, Anna, and Jason crossed the finish line last year, we asked them how they work hill training into their sessions since we were amazed at the success these flat-landers had on our high-altitude course.  Tim and Anna have a 10 foot man-made knoll nearby that they run up and down, up and down, up and down….  At first I thought this was a joke, but their stellar performance speaks for itself.  When asked about his thoughts on Josh’s FL vs GA theory, Tim said that he doesn’t think local knowledge is an issue on this course because of how well that’s accounted for in the race planning.  Tim found last year’s maps to be plentiful enough, descriptive enough, and accurate enough to account for any teams’ lack of local knowledge.  That fact, in addition to how much planning goes into taking racers into locations that even the locals have never been, help to even out the playing field.  Tim does find it interesting to see how teams that train in mountains perform against teams that train on hills when put to the test.

Some basic facts about Green Paw – they changed their name from Shake-A-Leg Miami after Jason founded Green Paw Adventure Sports (don’t ask me about the name – I found they’re not so sure themselves after hearing a vague explanation about Jason’s love for dog’s and nature being green).  The 2010 Atomic will be a celebration event for Tim and Anna since today they are graduating from the University of Miami with their Doctorates and are out to take on the world.  The Atomic is the one race they’ve been anticipating the most and Anna is looking forward to competing with WEDALI since they are her “hero team” – she’s been watching those guys race for most of her life and although she’s competed with them before, she always welcomes the opportunity to spend more time on another course with them.  These guys race because they love being outdoors, getting away from everything, and pushing themselves through adversity they normally would never encounter in order to learn just what they’re truly capable of.  And in case I didn’t say it enough – these guys (and gal!) are tough!