The Carnival of Running #11

Welcome to the 11th edition of The Carnival of Running!

I could point you to a story about the UCLA Undie Run, but I know you would rather just watch the video.

The good news about the Best Catfights of Women’s Sports is that only one involves runners. The bad news is there is no video of it!

Christmas in Bavaria includes Father Christmas, snow-covered cottages, and people dressed up as demons who scare little children. In other news more fit for Halloween than Christmas, one poor half-marathon runner discovered a dead body during the race.

“Dashing through the snow” took on a new meaning in Calgary, where they ran a 5k in temperatures of -28 Celsius (that’s 18 below in Fahrenheit, students). By way of contrast, the wussies in Kirkland, Washington, canceled the 12Ks of Christmas because of icy conditions.

If you are going to run a marathon at this time of year, where better than Honolulu? Apparently, lots of places, because for the second year in a row they had heavy rain and flooding during the race. This time, however, there were no significant problems with the timing chips. There were a few problems for baseball pitcher Hideki Okajima, who ran the marathon against the wishes of his employer, the Boston Red Sox. Worse than that, he ran a 6:10.

Reporter Layla Bohm was smarter, running her first marathon in Tucson, while keeping in mind this sage advice: “Never pee near a cactus.”

And we have much more race news! Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher will both run the 2009 Boston Marathon. Will this be the year the Americans break through?

Boston has tradition, but so does the Hastings Marathon in England, which just had its 100th anniversary. In fact, distance running at Hastings goes back a lot further than that. Who can forget Team Godwinson outracing the Normans in the Senlac Hill 10K in 1066?

Some runners are finding a new challenge in taking on the Utah Grand Slam, while the Bhutanese participated in the Run Against Corruption. There is no truth to the rumor the race will be relocated to Illinois next year.

Why choose among these races when you can run them all? Meet Larry Macon, a man who has run more than 100 marathons… this year. Strangely enough, running so many marathons is not one of five common mistakes marathon runners make.

Are runners more ethnically and racially diverse than the rest of the population? I don’t think so, but it isn’t like I’ve done a study or anything.

Gobs Channel has a blasphemous thought. Are bagels really that good for you to eat in the morning? What will be the next heresy? Stay away from pasta the night before a race?

Congratulations to Perry, who know officially holds the 50-mile joggling world record. No congratulations to Nitmos at Feet Meet Street, who wrote a Christmas carol about calf cramps. This is a slippery slope, eventually leading to “Hark! The Hemorrhoidals Sing.”

Let’s wrap this up with links to the legendary John Von Auerbach, who at last showed up on the Runners World Forum, after leaving them in stitches on BodyBuilding.com. But how many of his fans knew JVA is also the world’s greatest billiards stud?

That’s all for this time, friends. The next Carnival of Running won’t appear until January 14, giving you plenty of time to deck the halls, wassail, sing a sleighing song, and submit your posts to carnival@runningisfunny.com. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and when the Christmas shopping is getting you down, just be glad you don’t have to find any myrrh. Now run away!