The Fattest Mile

First, get an education:

1) Read this.
2) Have some kind of knowledge of UnderArmour's "click-clack" campaign and the fact that Jeremy Bloom is dating my ex-gal-pal.

Crap. I just noticed I've been typing after eating a greasy cookie and now I have a greasy keyboard. And a Dell Representative on my @$$ about a void 3-year warranty.

This is a story about half-marathons. And love.

After the full marathon of 2005, I decided to run a half-marathon with a pace in mind: sub-2.

The running calculators all said, based on my marathon speed, that I should be able to complete a half marathon in slightly under half my marathon time, 2 hours 12 minutes. The calculators projected, based on my weight, that I should be due for a quadruple by-pass and stomach stapling in one year.

I declared my intentions at the beginning of 2006: to run the Baltimore Half Marathon in under 2 hours. This would require a significant increase in my pace and would lead to me getting as ripped as a torn sheet.

My intentions were pure and true, but I did not start running consistently until March. Somewhere in there I got really efficient and started having aspirations to run the Full Marathon.

And this is where the Girl Who Shook up 2006 comes in.

She had never run a race over 10 meters to the Biker who just bought her a Grey Goose Vodka Tonic. The fact that she was rich was not so much that she never had to pay for drinks because of her beauty as it was that her parents were more loaded than Michael J. Fox's little black book back in '85.

Anyhow, affections were exchanged, and plans were altered and made and altered.

Girl: I want to come to Charm City and run with you.
ft: Okay. I'm doing the full marathon.
Girl: The half.
ft: The half under-2.
Girl: The half, however long it takes, you stay by my side.
ft: Fine.
Girl: And another thing-
ft: What, Princess?
Girl: I don't like to talk while running.
ft: So you save your verbosity for only when I want to kiss you repeatedly?
Girl: [beat] This will be fun!


So, in the spirit of being a nice doormat, I conceded.

I then took her out for a real nice meal of food, she said she needed her space but that we were cool and then she said we needed to talk and things were said and we hugged forever on her front step and she reiterated how important it is that we stay friends because that way she could claim me as a trophy. A sweet line at a party, "Oh, we'll meet tomorrow after I have breakfast with my ex. Yeah, we're great friends. I stay friends with all my exes (because I am so frickin' awesome). Yeah, my dad just sold 250 stocks to get me a new Acura!"

Anyhow, the point of this longeur is that I had already signed up for the half and could not do the whole marathon.

Also, Charm City U's streamlined PhD program only gave me enough time to run once a week. At happy hour the night before, I asked Caffo if he was ready for his race in a couple weeks time. He said, "Ah, no. I'd probably get a super slow pace like an hour forty. You know, slower than turtle soup being sh@t out in Febrero, bro."

I was praying to God in Heaven for just slightly under 2 hours so I could say I achieved at least one of my goals this year and spike the victory ball in the ex's face. Hour forty and I would build a church and wear a WWJD bracelet and then wear a dress to a Chemical Engineering lecture filled with lecherous bisexuals.

So I got up early the morning of the half marathon. I put on my race gear and went to the fridge to get my secret weapon: a 24 oz. bottle of red fruit punch nozzled Gatorade. You see, even though all the odds were against me completing a sub-2 half marathon, my pride wouldn't let me let go of it. In order to have a chance at it, I was going to skip all drink stations and carry my own liquid.

Go and give a quick consult of the running literature, and you will be left with the solid opinion of the running commmunity that this is the dumbest idea in the world.

So it is just me and my Gatorade walking in my racing bib to the start. I pass these two gentlemen waiting for the bus.

Man 1: "Don't look like you running very fast."

Man 2: "hehe hee"

ft: "Race hasn't started yet. I'm walking to the start line."

Man 1: "Don't they provide you with Gatorade?"

Man 2: "hehe hee"

ft: "Yes, but -"

Man 1: "Are you rich, man?"

Man 2: "Hoo whee. I smell it."

So I took the Skywalk to the IH (Inner Harbor, Wire fans) and stood in a thick gaggle of people. Some were hugging each other wishing each other luck. One lady had a garbage sack around her, squatting over a drain, peeing. Another dude had his BlueTooth on and was saying things like "Yes. I understand. I'm important, too." A bunch of kids circled around me and grabbed the fat on my waist and back and started flapping it like a parachute in gym class, all making giggling noises. Luckily, Blue left a clue back at Oriole stadium, and they left me after only a few minutes of utter embarrassment.

I'm already getting distracted the innanity of The OC on TV. I can't concentrate, and I cannot get away from it because I am homeless in Denver writing this.

Anywho.

The gun goes off, and the surge happens. I reason that if I have any chance at the sub-2, I'm going to need to flirt with disaster and run faster than I ever trained right from the start. Give a quick consult to the running literature, and you will find that I am liar. This is the dumbest idea on earth.

I am trucking. I am weaving all over the place. Up on the sidewalk as well as into stopped traffic on the wrong side of the median. I look at my watch at mile 1: 8:22. If you just dumped your pants, I apologize, and empathize. A 240 lb man should not be moving that fast, even if it is $0.99 day at Golden Corral.

I then spot Haruki. Haruki is a kid in my PhD program who is the newest running god. He ran 140 miles in the Sahara. No joke. He is ripped like a torn sheet. Shredded as Kraft South Beach approved 2% mild cheddar.

He is clapping and rooting on everyone. Then his Japanese-American eyes spot me.

"Hey, fantasticterrific, I just saw a couple of old ladies ahead of you. Better pick it up."

I felt like shouting back "All your base are belong to us" but decided that only Sacha Baron Cohen and Carlos Mencia can be racists - if fantasticterrific or Michael Richards speaks up - whoa Nelly (this is not a black joke - it is just an expression. Shut up, Kramer. Kramer, shut up and let me handle this!).

After Haruki delivered his line, I shouted, in celebration of all things Wes Anderson,

"With friends like you, who need friends!"

And continued on my comet-like arc through Murdermore.

I check at mile 2, my timepiece. 16:43. I just not only have kept this hellacious pace up for 2 miles, but ran the second faster than the first. If you just dumped your fresh panties, I apologize and empathize.

Same business at mile 3. 25:03.

Skipping the drink stations was going very well. However, my memory was playing tricks on me. During the full marathon, I remember food stations every quarter mile. Utz potato chips, gels, pretzels, wedding cakes, car bombs, etc.

Point is, I'm hungry. When you have 240 lbs moving through the thicker air of sea level port towns, you have to fuel it with more than sips from your own bottle of Gatorade.

The food station did not appear until mile 8. Oh - and the 8:20 mile pace slowly gave way, too. 8:45's, 9:00's, an 11:00. May have been the hills. May have been the frickin' OC sucking so much. Who watches this garbage? Peaches? Ex-French Ex-Husbands? Prostitute rings? Peter Gallagher?

And f***ing Adam Brody. How does someone who delivers so much charisma in Thank You For Smoking suck so bad on a role that should be more natural? The world's a stage, and he is on the moon.

Back to the race -

I keep doing stupid things like checking my watch at the mile markers for the Full Marathon, which differ by .1 mile in the wrong direction from those of the half. It keeps slamming my psyche. I start coming to the realization that running a race with an ideal time, a challenging time in mind sucks.

I was praying for a swift death.

I was praying that Gustave would claim me.

At mile 10, I was 99% certain that I was going to walk if I had no chance of making it under 2 hours. My legs were being worn to stubs.

However, I somehow was still in the game. No aloof support staff, no bleeding nipples, just absolute stupidity and a gatorade bottle. Rock on.

However, I'm going to need some consistent 9:00 minute miles to make it, and I have never ran 9:00's before race day, let alone 9:00's after running 10 miles. The bookies in Vegas are giving me 8,000 to 1 of sub-2ing it. Just for reference, the chance of accidentally being sent a Ron Mexico shirt is 4,096 to 1.


The home stretch brought back all sorts of great memories from the full marathon, like finally seeing Roman's eternally youthful face at mile 24. This time around, there were no Roman and Boston to help me run over the last incline on the Cathedral street bridge, but just pain and a whole lot of people passing me. That was one huge stinking difference between my full and half marathon experiences: in the full I was picking people off, moving up a full 30 minutes in pace. This time around, I was getting whooped by 3:30 pacers for the full marathon (the full marathon started 2 hours before the half). Psychologically, physiologically, mentally, religiously, and e-harmonically, I was a mess.

Blah blah blah. Keep reading.

So, finally, I get to Camden Yards. I'm determined to sprint to the numbers above the finish line, especially if they are closing in on 4:00:00 (which would indicate my 2 hour finish). I come through Camden Yards, and someone yells the most misleading phrase in I have ever heard in my own life, save "Girls are not sexual beings" :

"Only a hundred yards to go."

My brain clicked in. A hundred yards is a 10 second sprint, because I'm an NFL caliber athlete. The finish line is not in sight because of the curves it takes out of Camden Yards. So, when the Hundred Yards was announced, I chucked my Gatorade bottle and 5 oz. of Gatorade to the side. I heard the Oriole Mascot "Trixie, Hon" yell, "Hey, that guy just disrespected Cal Ripken, Jr." to which I replied, "No, his brother, Billy, already disgraced the entire game and the streak."

It was not 100 yards.

It was not 200, 300, 400, or 500. I started sprinting 580 yards out. Of course, I only lasted 15 seconds and then shifted down into "I have just run over 13 miles at a pace I have never run 1 mile" gear and prayed that the python/gator team would lash out of the crowds and take my life.

Finally, the numbers. 3:54:00. I flipped. I remembered my friend, who is 6'4'', 170 lbs ran a half marathon in 1:54:?? and I was poised to beat it with shorter legs, a bigger gut, and thusly, by guy logic, a huger wangoleer and a gold-er heart.

I turned on the juice, and to the outside observer, nothing happened.

I crossed the finish line. I beat 1:55. I'm stoked. I stumble around and the crew puts a heat blanket on me. I collected my half marathon medal and was sorely disappointed. Apparently the race fees increase was not seen in a heftier medal, but rather a slimmer medal and the bigger boobs of Ms. Baltimore UnderArmour 2006.

Suddenly I was worried about my time of finish. There was one check point around mile 9 were I got muscled to the shoulder and did not run over the checkpoint platform. I stumbled to the questions booth and they told me to not worry about that, but to rather worry about my choice of haircut, and proceeded to ask "Ronald McDonald" if he eats at McDonald's every time he visits the restaurant.

They said if I wanted my official time that I needed to go to the timing booth. It was as I stumbled over there I ran into two friends of mine: one from Charm City Swing (in unison, "Hey, I didn't know you were a runner!") and a girl who wears too much make-up on Fridays during Charm City U's Happy Hour ("Hey, Girls are sexual beings, Curly.")

I said my hellos and then continued waddling over to the time booth, when a nasty little thought took root in my brain: the race clock and my watch differed by the amount of time it took me to go from the waiting area to the starting line. Was it more than 5 minutes? If so, it meant that I missed my mark. If not, it meant that I was the Al Gore of Half Marathon Running (forget Al Gore the Loser - he's a Winner when it comes to Global Warming!).

Regardless, the first blow to my elation of race finishing came with the time discrepancy realization that I did not beat my 6' 4'' friend's 1:54. But to heck with that, I just wanted sub-2 so that my ex could not only wonder if Jeremy really loved her or just watching him love on her in the mirrors on the ceiling, but also gnaw on the fact that I just slammed dunked the race in which she otherwise would have held me back from glory.

I stood in line, and the lady punched in my bib number, printed out a receipt, looked at the time, then looked at me, looked at the time, and then looked me up and down, and then smiled. She then said, "You're fat. I mean, fast."

1:57:54

Sub-2!

A nearby high school choir started singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah! and the skies opened letting light into the darkest city featured on HBO. I decided to head home and eat a lot of food, shower up and sleep to speed along recovery. But then something caught my eye...

and then a realization struck my noggin.

The UnderArmour tent where they were showcasing new products. UnderArmour is the namesake sponsor of the marathon. Jeremy Bloom is a model for UA. Jeremy Bloom was doing victory dances in my ex's bedroom every night at 1 AM MST. Jeremy Bloom gets whatever he wants when he wants it.

I waddled over to the UA tent angrily eating my banana, wrapped in my heat blanket. I saw Jeremy's huge, pristine image in Black and Gold skin tight UA gear in an oversized advertisement above the tent. I can only attest the next events to the depletion of endorphins, as I am the first to admit that it is petty and irrational.

And awesome.

I stood in front of the tent, staring up at the advertisement. People were walking around me, and I was somewhat of an obstruction to the entering and egress of the tent. I then shouted, "Click, Clack, I think YOU heard me coming, Bloom!" and jumped up and spit out banana all over the Hilfiger-World-Class-Skier-Womanizer-Philly-Eagle's image. My legs, strong enough for the explosion upwards, were not strong enough for gravity's inevitable pull, and I collapsed upon my return to earth. It was here that AJ Hawk and Reggie Bush quietly stepped in from the side and picked me up and walked me to the edge of the premesis.

I found out later as the results were compiled that the average time was 2:14:57 and that the winner was a 1:03. This is great. I beat the average and at least was not outrun twice as quickly by the winning runner as I was in the full marathon. Another bonus is that I was the fastest person over 225 lbs, as well as the only person over 225 lbs.

I inquired to the JFK 50 miler organizers as to who was their heaviest finisher in the last 44 years the race has been going, and they said 263 lbs. So, sports fans, I am going to get up to 265 and do a 50 miler in November so that I can inspire the fattening Americans to fight Obesity - which is more than Bloomberg or Kennedy ever asked of me or any red-blooded New Yorker or American.