Grand Prix Standings After Two Races

I don't know if I officially mentioned it here, but I signed up for the Minnesota Distance Running Association's "Grand Prix" series again this year. I'm not PLANNING on doing many of the races in the series, but we'll see what happens. The Grand Prix is 13 races, but only your top 10 races count (so you only NEED to do 10 to get a "full" score), and 2 are marathons which I will NOT be doing.

After the Meet of the Miles, I knew I was behind speedy Ben Merchant, but it turns out there were 2 other guys who beat me who I don't know:

And then remember in my Securian Winter Run Half Marathon race report from a few days ago, I noted that I passed Evan and Rick with about a half mile left. It turns out that when I passed them, I earned myself 52 more points (than if I hadn't passed them), and that put me in 2nd place in the Grand Prix standings after 2 races, just 11 points behind Nathan:

When I wasn't sure if my calf would hold up for the race, one of the "CONs" in my mind for doing the race was that I'd then have the first 2 races under my belt in the Grand Prix series, and then I'd be more likely to WANT to do 10 races to earn as many points as possible.

Well, I'm planning on racing O'Gara's Irish Run in March which is the next in the series. We'll see if I can beat Nathan to take the lead in the series - I beat him him the mile, but he REALLY beat me in the half marathon. (I only beat him by 0:12 in the mile, and he beat me by 2:44 in the half, so I'm guessing he's faster over an 8K [about 5 miles].)

Here's my Securian Winter Run Half Marathon race report if you missed it!