He did what?

So recently I put up a post called Rundom Thoughts wherein I posted some random thoughts and I guess some dickwad decided that posting random thoughts was his thing and that I was stealing his bit, even though Rundom Thoughts is a much cooler name than Randumbery and my post was way funnier. Personally, I think a lot of blogs post random thought type of posts and I think that the aforementioned toolbag is way outta’ line here because you can’t call dibs on being the only blogger that gets to post random thoughty type posts, plus I bet someone else was doing it before he was.

Anyway this schmuck then went and commenced nothing less than an ACT OF WAR against this fine upstanding site that uses only completely original ideas and never ever uses ideas from other blogs when he posted a running celebrities post which is totally MY THING! It’s not like some lame Randumbery post that no one really likes anyway, it’s my signature post. Well, do you think that I am going to take this lying down? Hell and No!

But enough about my petty confrontations with other bloggers, I’m sure I’ll take action in due course. Right now though, I’d like to tell you all about how I’ve been coaching my son’s colt’s soccer team. Here’s a picture of me with the team just so you know I’m not making this up.

Fake smiles because they’re not really having fun.
My son colt ended up being the leading scorer with 17 goals in a 7 game season. Unfortunately this wasn’t quite up to my standards and so, this one time... [insert witty, but borderline child abuse story here.]

A group of my friends* decided that all our kids should be on a soccer team together, the league said that there was room for a team but there was no coach so we’d have to provide our own coach. Guess who got the honor of ‘volunteering’ to be coach? The handsome runner who grew up in England playing soccer and charming the young lasses, that’s who.

At the first practice I screamed at the kids until I was red in the face, we** ran suicides, we ran the bleachers, we did up-downs and we didn’t get to touch a soccer ball until we had proved that we were willing to sacrifice for the good of the coach’s win-loss record. If I was going to be miserable then I wasn’t going to be the only one. I even had to publicly humiliate the shy, taciturn (+4 word score) little girl in pigtails because she kept asking to use the potty. Not on my time, sweetie! Many of the parents appreciated what I was doing, I could tell from the aghast looks on their faces that they were as disgusted as I was by the complete lack of ball skills that any of these 5 year olds possessed. What is this the Special Olympics? (Boom goes the Presidential insult!)

At the end of the season I think we all grew a little; I grew a little more cynical and the kids grew a little more fearful, which is a useful emotion for them to possess.

Also, I want to mention that I really hate llamas. Man, are those creatures annoying.

* I use the word ‘friends’ here loosely because real friends wouldn’t pressure you into coaching their talentless, inept kids. Real friends would also buy the coach a parting gift after a 6-1 season. I’m just sayin’.

** When I say ‘we’ I mean that in the sense that I issued the orders and they did the drills. I didn’t do the drills with them because I wasn’t the two-left-footed moron that couldn’t follow simple instructions to bend the ball into the top corner of the goal! Gah! How am I supposed to work with these saps?

I'm Running 2,561 Wienermobiles

It's Wienerific!
A number of weeks ago Just Your Average Joggler had a post where he discussed the length of a marathon using some non-standard units of measure. Today I will be employing the use of my plagiary tag and re-writing his post in my own words. I feel really guilty about it because I'm quite sure that no blogger has ever taken another blogger's idea and posted it onto their own blog. Ever.

As you know I'll be running the Denver Half Marathon on October 14th and while most people think of a half marathon as 13.1 miles I think I might prefer to think of it as:

• 2,561 Wienermobiles.
• 702,748.29 Cockroaches laid end to end, but I feel sorry for the .29 of a cockroach that has to be brutally murdered and sawn in half to complete this analogy. (OK, no I don't.)
• 221,337.6 Flaccid penises laid end to end. No word on whose flaccid penis that is and I really do feel bad about the 0.6 in this analogy. Is there any way we can use John Wayne Bobbitt's since it may already be a 0.6? (Did you know that there are 2 C's in flaccid or that it can apply to something other than your wiener? It's not a word I like to use a lot so I had no idea.)
• 47.56 Empire State Buildings laid end to end.
• 3,547 Small Intestines.
• 9,764.89 Shaquille O'Neals laid end to end.
• 11,857.37 Giraffe's Necks.
• 16.47 Trips across the Golden Gate Bridge - That somehow makes it sound better.
• 1,419.69 of the World's Longest Snakes. I hate snakes.
• 0.262 Panama Canals. (Did you know that if you spell the phrase "a man, a plan, a canal, Panama" backwards it says the same thing. Also, did you know that's called a Palindrome?) You did not!
• 207,504 Human tongues, meaning that a human tongue is roughly a quarter inch longer than a flaccid penis and there is no way to prove this because a human tongue has never seed a flaccid penis.
• 230.56 Football Fields
• 0.00655 Oregon Trails.

Also of note, I weigh the same as:

• 11.48 Spider Monkeys.
• 2,592 Human Eyeballs.
• 0.146 Testicles of a Right Whale. Now I don't know what a Right Whale is pero él tiene huevos grandes.
• 3,227 Quarters.
• 36 Chickens.
• 1.47 Jennifer Anistons.
  
  
  

I weigh 1.47 of these. I hope she's not stretching cold muscles prior to going for a run. Only an idiot would do that, right?
If you'd like to know how tall you are in tongues or if you want to know how many breast implants it would take to equal your weight you can visit the weird converter and figure it out. Be sure to let us know if you find any that are interesting.

Excuses

"I cannot run this race today,"
Said Half-Fast, while in bed he lay.
"I pulled my hamstring and my groin,
I have a serious swelling in every loin.
My feet are blistered, my ankle's sprained,
And what if I have over-trained?
My arches have fallen to the floor,
My body feels like it's ninety-four,
I've got shin splints, athlete's foot and stitches,
And now my kneecap really itches.
My heel is burdened by Achilles Tendonitis,
Or it might just be Plantar Fasciitis,
Either way I should stay at home,
And not risk Patellofemoral Syndrome.
My feet are too slow, my legs are too fast,
And what if I keep getting passed?
I once heard that running can cause arthritis,
I'm already developing Hip Bursitis.
My quad's are too loose, my hamstring's too tight,
My left leg's faster than my right.
My calves have turned a dark shade of orange,
I got my toe caught in a door-hinge,
It caused a muscle tear, just partial,
And I know it broke my metatarsal.
I have Iliotibial Band Syndrome, or I.B.S.
And look! My hair is such an awful mess.
I dislocated my funny bone,
I'm sure I suffer from Plica Syndrome,
I have Tennis Elbow, and my belly is -- what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today's the scheduled pre-race rest day?
G'bye, I’m off to carbo-load and eat soufflé."

Inspired by Shel Silverstein's poem 'Sick' which can be found in the book 'Where The Sidewalk Ends'. The orange/door hinge rhyme didn't work so well, but I've always wanted to try to rhyme something with orange and that was the best I could do. Yes, I know that Iliotibial Band Syndrome is technically shortened to 'ITBS' but 'I BS' seemed a much more apt abbreviation for my purposes. What are you a doctor?

Pre-Race Checklist

I have always been amused by all the things that I have to do before a race and have often felt that I have a bigger checklist than NASA has before a launch. Stopwatch? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Sun Block? Check. I check everything, and then I check it again like I’m OCD. I feel like Jack Nicholson's character in 'As Good As It Gets'. For some time now I've been meaning to put together some kind of checklist for this blog that will give you a good look at the crazy that is my pre-race checklist and while I haven't really managed to organize those thoughts into a list I did find a pre-race check list that someone took the time to put together already.

You’re just going to have to trust me that I already had this idea a while ago because Australian running blogger MorseyRuns already put together a humorous pre-race checklist right here, and beat me to it. [Begin fake Aussie accent] “I throw another shrimp on the barbie and raise a glass of Castlemaine XXXX in your honor.” [/accent] You can (and should) check out her blog.

In the future you can expect that at some point I will post something similar to this only it will probably be a giant let down now that you’re expecting it and I’ve already exposed you to MorseyRuns’ humorous recounting of it. Awww crap!

I hereby, renounce all originality points for this idea.

Funniest Post Race Report You'll Ever Read

I try to bring the funny here on a daily basis, but today I read something that was funnier and more inspiring than anything that I could possible write. So here's a link to J-Money's post race report:
I Did It: The Half Marathon

J-Money is a comedian who posts over at the semi-sports related website, Ladies... and she actually once posted a comment or two on this humble blog, which makes her one in a million... or maybe one in a hundred million, and makes me dangerously close to becoming an internet stalker.

Here's a quote from the above linked article to entice you to go read it since you're obviously still reading my lame post instead: (Quick programming note- if you could forget the article after you've read it that would be great, because I'll likely plagiarize the hell out of it after my next race.)

Mile 3: The first hill of the race. People in Charlotte have nice lawns. It’s a shame that runner number #4178 is taking a piss in one of them. Good thing their newspaper is wrapped in plastic.