Runner's World Weighs In

First, some administrative things.

I'm rather addicted to mycokerewards.com. I signed up just to get some free Yahoo Fantasy Football content but have since decided that if Coke wants to give me a $50 Best Buy gift card in exchange for drinking 150 or so 20oz. Diet Cokes, so be it! Though the amount of artificial sweetener involved in such a booty quest is substantial, I feel I'm up to the challenge. If you don't use your little 12 or 15 digit codes under your Coke or Coke product bottle top, feel free to send them my way! 98 points down, 300 or so to go to glory!!!

My iPod Shuffle (which I've become rather fond of) is making me do something I should have long ago; I'm ripping all my albums to my laptop. The new Windows Media Player makes it trivial, so perhaps it's OK it took me some time to get to it. My Shuffle is slowing filling with some of my favorite Cake, Ben Folds Five, Better Than Ezra and other such old but good albums that I had largely forgotten about.

Running, I've done a touch. Four miles tonight, first (and probably last) run since last Saturday. The plan was start slow, speed up, then do one mile faster than any marathon I would comfortably run; the miles, and the key thoughts from those miles, were ... 10:20 (I should be able to do this for 26 miles), 9:50 (man there's a lot of people out here tonight), 9:40 (move your tiny dog or I may have to punt it), 8:55 (maybe I can run the last mile of the marathon this fast!). I've been doing more stretching and making sure I get back into my daily stationary bike riding (on days with no other cardio, that is), so my body is feeling reasonably stoked at the moment. Some foot pain, but I think I can handle it before the marathon.

Runner's World (RW) finally got around to telling what they believe to be the story behind this year's Chicago Marathon. I thought about posting just on this topic because I was nothing short of amazed at how well they did with their story. They didn't take liberties with the story, or even inject much in way of opinionated commentary, they just presented the facts of Chicago and pointed out inconsistencies where they exist. The February's issue has the article; I would suggest you read it.

My reading this article came just after finishing the final editorial article of another running magazine, Running Times (RT). This final article was almost as reckless as the one written by the ass at the Chicago Sun Times saying Chicago did just fine, it was all those dumb ass runners who were at fault come race day. The RT article was clearly written by a long time runner, as he lamented how races now cater to people who really have no business running. "In my day", he said, "many races didn't provide any water at all." That, you prick, is called progress. I do agree that many people who are neither dedicated to the sport nor prepared for the challenge take on the marathon. We are, however, in running's second great boom period and this boom is putting the one from the 70s to shame. Race directors and idiot columnists know this and cannot change it any more than I could change the weather on that hot, Chicago, October day. Races either need to prepare for the masses of runners who cross all levels of fitness or simply cap their races and force people to show, via prior results, that they are worthy. Even though running's second boom period gave the ass from RT a job, it also picked me up along the way, so I'm grateful all in all. Several race directors, including Houstons, commented to RW that the Chicago debacle was a wake up call, so perhaps people will finally start to understand the rules underwhich their races much finally operate.

Now go hydrate.