121st Edition - 3/22/07

121 - The total number of points to win at Cribbage. Cribbage is a bit of a Schwister tradition. Good game. Highly recommend.

• Special Guest

Today is John's version of what happened with the 2000 marathon, and a quick reply from Kyle. You might remember John and a teammate from the World Series of Pop Culture, but then again, you may not, considering the entire experience lasted about 45 minutes.

John runs and Kyle retorts

kyle speaks the truth. my version was of course a little different, but
most of the facts are consistent.

in order to prepare for the big race, i opted to become johnny rage,
starting around 6a. pretty good. i was pumped. got there late, as kyle
said. kyle moves up front to start. i drop to the middle of the pack at
the starting line. gun goes off. minutes roll by, i cross the starting
line, unaware of the pain that was going to set in.

i am cruising at a pretty slow pace. stop and walk and get water every two
miles, since i figure that i would rather be safe than sorry. see the folks
and katie (who didn't have my gatorade) at around the 8 mile mark. feeling
good. very confident at this point.

then, the infamous hill. well, me, being the thinking man, decide to slowly
jog, and if i get tired, walk the hill. so jog about half way. turn the
corner. cry. walk. get to the top. hard to describe the feeling in the
legs at that point. i equate it to laying in a nice soft bed and having a
someone repeatedly beat your legs with a 2 by 4. that will give you an
approximate idea of the agony.

so i decide to walk for awhile. well, "awhile" turned into 10 miles, which
resulted in my 5.5 hour finish. sad.

among the people who passed me...

"lorraine" - a 73 year old lady who looked as though she could barely walk
a man wearing tevas
a woman who i passed earlier while she was vomiting

all made me feel really good.

so everyone think long and hard if you are going to run one of these. and
don't slack off in the training near the end, like i did. bill, i know how
much you love running, so just keep that in mind.

john.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I want you all to know that I'm currently crying from the previous email from John.
I had a few ideas as I was waiting in a slightly concerned state for John to finish.
Both would have been cruel and foolish, but amusing in hindsight. One was that i would be eating cheetos on the curb and drinking a coke as john came by. However, as I later discussed with John, this may very well have prevented him from finishing the final 100 meters of the race. The other was that I was going to take pictures of the saddest characters that crossed the line before him. Lorraine, of course, being one of them and a fat lady in spandex being the other. Unfortunately I missed the person in tevas.

Moral of the story, stick to the training program or pay the piper.

• Stuff

music videos
* Arctic Monkeys - "Brainstorm" - at arctic-monkeys.com
* Travis - "Closer" - at youtube.com
* The Kaiser Chiefs - "I can do it without you" - myspace.com/kaiserchiefs