Of flip flops and Crocs - "whatever works".

Day 4 was a long day. I was on duty at the final checkpoint. Given the difficulty of the terrain and the distance, many competitors only returned after 8 hours or more. But there was one I particularly remembered. This participant came back with one running shoe on one feet and a flip flop on another. Chased by a dog was already traumatic enough for him, but that was not all. He lost one of his running shoes while trying to clean it in the river. I thought he was going to withdraw, but ended up he was lucky. His tent mate withdrew earlier and game him his pair of hiking shoes. While I was telling Ralph Crowley about this,  he gave me a better one. There was a girl in an earlier race who lost her shoes in the luggages. She managed to borrow a pair of flip flops and finished day 1. For the rest of the race, she managed to find a pair of crocs, wore them all the way through, and finished top 50. Later, while I was having a chat with Mary, she told me an even better one - Crocs had once sponsored one athlete to do the entire race on Crocs ;-)