Posts Tagged ‘marathons’

Yo Adrian!

Ryan Desgrange is a very good marathoner, but just short of the speed necessary for elite status. Undaunted, he is seeking another claim to fame, by attempting to become the fastest man to run a marathon in a film character costume. (Why don’t women ever think of these things?)

His choice was Rocky. Not this Rocky…

…this Rocky.

The choice of costume would seem to give Desgrange an inherent advantage over someone dressed as, say, the Tin Woodsman. But there is a drawback.

His biggest challenge has “Rocky” scrawled across it: the boxing gloves. He can’t take them off during the marathon.

“I have no idea how to pick up water” along the race course, he said. If he can rig an interior gripping system, he’ll practice with help from his wife, Heather, near their home in Howell, Mich.

Fortunately, the Internet has instructions for everything.

Runner’s World Weighs In On Biggest Loser Scandal

The parent company of Runner’s World publishes Biggest Loser books and has a financial interest in the show’s image, so it was only a matter of time before we heard from them about the Dane Patterson marathon fiasco.

Runner’s World interviewed Patterson and others associated with the race.

By the time Dane reached a water stop past mile 16, they’d fallen way off pace. He was exhausted, and a sub-six-hour finish was not going to happen. One of the producers proposed driving Dane and Carli up the road.

“I was irritated,” Dane said, “but I just wanted to make everybody happy. I knew the show wanted a finishing shot.”

In my view, neither NBC nor the producers on site have any excuse for what they did. All of this idiocy simply to get a finish line shot. They could have used footage of Patterson celebrating with his family afterwards and made no mention of how far he ran, what his time was, or whether the course was still open. No one would have cared.

And how could NBC broadcast a show ostensibly about health and fitness and no one questioned the 3:53 caption at the end of the show? Did they fire all their fact-checkers during the writers’ strike?

As for Patterson himself, he must have been really dehydrated to think that climbing in a van at mile 17 was a good idea. But he’s not making it easy to give him the benefit of the doubt, no matter how apologetic he is now. Here are some of the things he told Runner’s World:

* “At the time I didn’t think it was a big a deal, but it was a bad decision. I understand that now. I realize how important that 26.2 miles is for runners.”

* “Honestly, I will cherish that medal for doing 23 miles.” (Patterson wasn’t disqualified until after he received his finisher’s medal. No one, so far, has suggested he give it back.)

* “Plus, at mile 17, it’s not hard to talk a 280-pound guy into taking a ride.”

Next week on The Biggest Loser: Tara swims the English Channel! Don’t miss it!

The Inside Scoop

If you’re not too busy next week and you’re tired of running in the cold weather, you might want to head to Milwaukee for an unusual race – the InStep Icebreaker Indoor Marathon.

Billed as “the world’s largest indoor marathon,” the race consists of roughly 94 laps around the track inside the Pettit National Ice Center in climate-controlled comfort. The organizers can accommodate about 100 runners.

“The unknown of the experience is what makes it kinda fun for me,” runner Nic Giebler told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “People think you’re nuts to run a marathon, but to run 26.2 miles in a circle takes a special group of nuts.”

Sabotage

Writing a humor column about running isn’t exactly curing cancer, but I have pride, too.

So it’s doubly difficult when I come up with an idea, only to find someone else has already written an awesomely funny article on the topic.

We’ve all read (and in many cases, written) those standard pieces about tackling the marathon for the first time. A parody of these articles is long overdue. Well, the folks over at The Onion published a column by Paul Consella titled “I’m Training to Ruin a Marathon” that will have every running writer and blogger laughing and cringing at the same time.

There is plenty to chew on, but here is a little appetizer:

“Sure, everyone would like to ruin a marathon, but who among us has the discipline and energy to get up at the crack of dawn morning after morning, through rain, sleet, and snow, and practice handing out cups of vinegar to the frontrunners?”

Head over there and read it, but don’t forget to come back. I believe in the old adage, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, someone else will.”