Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 cropped — 1/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
This is how they take a Sunday-afternoon stroll
Today was the Kyoto Marathon (京都マラソン2012). The guy above, looking remarkably affable and relaxed, was not only leading the race at the 35km mark (about 80% of the way done), but had a full 30-second lead on second place, and more than a minute on third. I have no idea whether he ended up winning or even finishing, but at this point he looked solidly in command.
UPDATE: he won the race by 29 seconds, in a leasurly time of 2:26:21.
He was, at that point, #1 out of 14,093 runners: 1÷14,093 is 0.00078052, hence the caption.
The finish line was less than a minute's stroll from my front door, and provided its own photo opportunities once I made my way back...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
after 3:18:27 of what I can only imagine as agony
( the two guys with raised arms are exactly on the finish line )
While I was out taking these pictures, I was chatting with my brother Mike in California (via the most excellent WhatsApp Messenger) a bit about marathons, since he's run Boston and such in the past, with a best of 2:49:31. After I returned home and started the photos loading into Lightroom, I was putzing around on Facebook and found that he had just finished the 35th Annual Catalina Marathon a few hours prior. I'm hurt.... I don't know why he chose to run that one instead of Kyoto (or both! :-)).
Nice pics. I plan to run Kyoto in 2013 if I am successful in the balloting.
By the way, I own a copy of your regex book.