My Life as an Ass Model

Last year I lived the dream of every young boy: I was an ass model. For nine glorious months in 2010, my backside adorned the banner of the blog of the world 100k champion herself, Ellie Greenwood.

The banner image was shot by Seattle-based ultrarunning fan and photographer, Glenn Tachiyama, as Ellie, Chris Rennaker and I passed by on the Interurban trail during the 2010 Chuckanut 50k.

The original image captured all three of us but Ellie uploaded the full-size shot which, when placed in her blog’s header, cropped Ellie herself out of the shot leaving just Chris and me, ultrarunning ass models.

I presumed that Ellie would fix the image, if only because it was huuuuge and pushed the content of her blog too far down the screen, but there it remained for months, all through her rise to ultrarunning greatness.

Visitors looking for the race report from her world 100k trail record run at Elk Beaver were first greeted by my behind. Her report from the Scorched Sole 50-miler where she left me for dead in the snow atop Little White Mountain on her way to winning the race outright? My backside. Her Calgary and Edmonton marathon championships? Paps’s posterior. Her astonishing 5:08 Knee Knacker, her overall win at Run for the Toad, even her Canadian Death Race championship where she finished second to Hal Koerner with the second fastest overall time ever? You guessed it: Dave’s derriere for each and every one.

As Ellie racked up the wins and attracted greater attention it seemed like she was adding a new sponsor a week to the side bar, but still, my butt remained parked where it had been since March: the first thing her growing fan base would see when they visited the site.

Surely after her World Championship 100k title in November one would think my run would be over and there would be a charming photo of a beaming Ellie draped in The Saltire atop her blog. Nope. My gluteus was still maximus. My seat was the crown atop the blog of the Champion of the World!

But fame is fleeting and my butt’s time in the spotlight would eventually come to a quiet end late in 2010 with the launch of a new blog layout and a new header shot of Ellie running the Baden Powell Trail on the North Shore where she first cut her teeth as an ultra trail runner.

It was brief, but I’ll never forget my time on top.