Let's All Laugh Together

I rarely spend money on myself. Food, of course, and gas - but the rest of my measly paycheck goes to covering the bills and expenses of daily life - you know, the fun stuff.

So when I broke my promise to everyone and decided to act again this spring, I told myself I would spend the entire paycheck on myself and travel. I had never seen the West Coast, except for a 4-year-old trip to Vancouver that my mind has completely blocked out (god I hope I'm not recessing some horrible event); so to appease the long-ignored demands of many great friends, I bought a ticket to Los Angeles, California for mid-May to see what I had never seen. Hollywood, beach bikinis, movie studios, scripts blowing in the wind, surfboards, OC kids - I wanted to see it all!

California was absolutely wonderful - I really enjoyed swimming in the crisp Pacific, strolling the walk of fame, putting my hands in Frank Sinatra's imprints and fending off Jaws at Universal Studios. But those aren't the stories that need to be told -

- this one is.

On Saturday night, I went to see the show my host and wonderful friend, A.K.A. family, had been stage managing for the last few weeks on Melrose in Hollywood. For the sake of this story, I can't reveal names or exact locations - because whew, this is a doozy.

Two of my other college friends from Butler had joined me for the evening to see the show, and it was wonderful to see them after three years of absence. "Eileen" (as we'll call her), was my partner-in-crime as my faux spy duo "Red Team" in college, and an improv extraordinaire. Shorter than me but with twice the sass, she's quick and witty and fits into L.A. like the round peg in the round hole from your Play-school playset.

The other was "Tara" (A.K.A.), a happy-go-lucky sun-kissed brunette who was always smiling and always on the bright side of things. With a mid-section laden with tattoo art, she's a free-spirited delight to be around - so happy that most people think she's high when they meet her - but that's just how she is! Also hysterically funny.

Walking into the theater, it was the smallest venue I've ever seen for acting: ~five rows of collapsible metal seats, maybe ten seats across. The sound booth and light board were a standing-room-only site in the back corner, and the lights were way down. A keyboardist tickled away the electronic ivories in the corner as the pre-show, and the curtain was an assemblage of black fabric stapled together, suspended from a laundry line. Hodge podge my friends, hodge podge.

The producer came out to give us a bit of background on the show. Again, to protect the innocent, I'm neither going to to tell you what it was about nor the name, but let's just get this all clear right now. It was an old English story that takes place in the countryside. However, for no better reason than the director loved the idea of the future, it takes place far in the future - when cars fly and talk and voice-activated water comes out of the wall.

The show began. Now don't get me wrong, the actors did a fine job with what they were given - it's as if Michelangelo had attempted to paint St. Peter's Basillica with a pencil and some crazy glue. What I later found out was that the director had written the script only part-way through reading the book - he never finished reading the actual story! Thus, our tale unfolds.....

Everyone is dressed in old-world costume; yet, cars can fly. The family automobile flies and talks, in an old English accent - yet it's southern America. When a horse runs by, it's hoof sounds are generated by a young boy running throughout the audience with coconuts. Yes, friggin' coconuts. In the middle of a serious conversation in the kitchen, family members walk up to an invisible wall, hold our their hands and say, "water on," continue the conversation, and then say, "water off." When they start the flying car, the driver literally makes the engine start up noises with his mouth (think "vrrrrooommmm"); and when getting in and out of the car, the actors constantly forget to open and close the car door (so they're therefore pulling a Dukes of Hazzard every time they get in). At one point, a daughter flirts with an unseen lover behind the curtain; and when he extends his hand to say goodbye to her, after making out, it's the hand of the wrinkly old town sheriff. NOT the intention of the script, but it's the only man who wasn't on stage at the time. Gross.

Now at this point, there are bite marks in my left finger as I've lodged it in between my teeth to keep from bursting out laughing. Lines are ridiculous and out of place, cues are off, curtains are opened and closed by the cast, and monologues are delivered that even make Hallmark throw up a little in the back of its throat. The fourth wall is SHATTERED again and again, as we've been welcomed in as "family" at the beginning of the show; so forty minutes of being ignored are suddenly interrupted by the autistic child (not ACTUALLY autistic) in the show running up to put puzzles together with us......then he runs away with coconuts to provide the horse sound effects. Yup.....

Near the end of the first act, a man wins a prize in the show, but decides to give it to another character as a present. He delivers a long monologue about how sad he is about his late wife, and he has no reason to go on living. It is sappy, terrible, and WAY over the top. He reveals a gun (of which we were warned before the show was NOT a real gun.....WHEW) and his suicide is imminent. This doesn't sound funny......but it was so poorly written, delivered, and blocked - that it was. REALLY funny.

We had been holding our laughter in, when Tara finally burst and laughed OUT LOUD during the "serious" part of the show. My eyes shot wide open; but drawing on her old acting skills, Tara managed to turn her laughter into a heartfelt sob, and Eileen managed to rub her back and comfort her in her time of "sorrow." The whole scenario had almost reached its pinnacle at this point; however, when the lights went down, the old man yelled "bang" to signify shooting himself. Not a sound effect, not slamming on a table, not even a CAP GUN - the man. yelled. "bang." Yes. Later, we would find out that the director (who also performed) thought it was an awesome show because the acting had made someone cry in the audience. We didn't have the nerve to tell him the truth.....

After some absurd plot twists and a one-line resolution of the conflict in a zany "Oh my gosh, we forgot about this!" twist, we were able to sprint outside for some fresh air and laugh it off. The show took itself so seriously, and probably is a very intense and dramatic book (among women); however, it was so poorly directed and written that it was TOO easily mocked. If ONLY the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys had been there....

Then a maniacal little light bulb went on over Eileen's head. "What if they changed it to PURPOSELY mock the script, turn it into a Rocky Horror Picture Show kind of deal?" Tara and I thought it was brilliant, and our ideas started to zip around like lightening - what if when the horse comes out, EVERYONE has coconuts for it - what if when the car starts, the whole audience makes the engine and techno sounds - when they said "water on," we all have little squirt guns we squirt the stage with - when someone cries, we all yell, "get over it!" We had an awesome time laughing about it. Then we told our host, Chris....

"You have to tell the Director about it," she said in a serious tone.

WHAT?!

"He'll think it's brilliant, he'll love it. Tell him," she asserted.

Now at this point, my creativity-induced laughter shrank back into its shell, and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I felt like doing what Chris was suggesting was like going up to an artist and being like, "look, your painting is great, but you know what would make it WAY better? If we could all mock it." Yeah, paintbrush-rectal removal eminent.

But she insisted, and our take was I'm just visiting and Eileen and Tara live across the city - we'll never see this guy again. SURE, why not?!

The cast was headed next door to the comedy club (which echoed laughter throughout the whole show - NOT helping their case for a serious production) for a post-show beverage. Our team of four joined them, and with a table secured I bought a round for the director and he sat to listen.

Since it was Eileen's brain child to begin with, we had elected that she kick-off the pitch. And so she did, and she began to sell her idea to turn this serious coming-of-age story into a mockery of what it had been. Tara and I jumped in here and there to bolster her argument and add our own jokes and quips, but I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the director's facial expressions and his hand, ever waiting for him to smash the bottle of beer I had bought him and slit my throat. But he listened intently.

At the end of our pitch, all four of us smiled nervously at one another, backing up our story, but awaiting the wrath of an insulted artist. A wide smile crept across the director's face, and he actually began to weep. The man cried.

"I love it, it's brilliant. I'm so shocked right now, this is amazing!"

WHAT?!

He called over each actor one by one, even the "autistic" child, to have them hear our pitch. Each actor thought the idea was incredible, and wanted to add the changes the very next night. I started to feel like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone - were our ideas actually good, or are all these people friggin' insane? We are saying your show is terrible, and it should be mocked to be made enjoyable - are you not hearing us!?

We assured them that they couldn't make the changes right away - that the script would need to be rewritten intelligently so the jokes and audience play-alongs all flowed seamlessly - relaunch the show in six months. He relunctantly agreed.

We didn't hit a bump with our pitch until the overprotective, vicariously-living mother of the leading lady (about 14 years old) found a "problem" with our pitch. We said that the cast would all need to be 21 years old to deliver the jokes in the correct manner, and the audience would need to be permitted to drink during the show. Sensing that her daughter's future with this production was in jeopardy, mama leapt into action to argue why kids should be left in a show like this (and please, watch "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and know that that's NOT ok). Parents, there's a point when you need to stop shoving your kids through a machine to attempt to make them "the best" or "famous," and let them have a childhood and put them in positive environments. We've seen what this can do time and time again. So we left it open as negotiable, but rest assured - no children will be destroyed in the production of this show.

The director loved every bit of it, and thanked us again and again for the inspiration and offering to push his production "to the next level" - as he said. I was sincerely dumbfounded - I thought it was a potential night-ruiner and we'd seriously insult someone twice our senior - but we made this man's night, maybe even his year. Heck, the whole cast thought we were these brilliant prodigies from the Midwest! Does that even exist?!

And that was that. Eileen and Chris are now in discussion with the director to draft contracts to have the four of us rewrite the show to our mockery, audience-play style - upon the director's request. I might even get flown out time and again for consultation. What started as a terrible show evolved into something we felt horrible for laughing so hard at, and eventually ended up with the beginnings of a business deal to write a play for a man in L.A. who loves flying cars and stories told in the Old South of the United States.

Only in L.A.......

A Family Paradise

This past weekend, my parents welcomed Allison and me to their finished lakehouse on Norris Lake in TN. The culmination of my father's retirement after more than 32 years dedicated to the same company, the lakehouse will serve as my parents' respite for the rest of their years - I hadn't understood how beautiful twilight years could be until I saw their paradise.

About four years ago, my parents came and visited me while working at summer camp to let me know they were bidding on property in Tennessee ."The highest point of the highest mountain," they attested; but me being quite distant from the world of bidding on tracks of land (20 and without much direction), I was relatively indifferent to the idea.

Over the years I saw pictures of the view and random steaks in untouched earth, and eventually began to see blueprints of what was to morph out of nothing. They designed every aspect of the house, from the angle of the deck to the burners on the stove. Dad would have his high tower of an office to rule over the poperty, and mom would have the art project room she always wanted.

The house was "completed" sometime last year; but with the recent tragedy in the family, the pristine house has remained untouched in the wilderness of Tennessee ever since, as more important issues have been attended to. So as Allison and I drove in on a rainy Friday night after four hours on the highway, I was eager to see the legend.

Allison is a bit jumpy out in nature, not at ease as my Outdoor Adventure, summer camp, and sailing compatriots - so I knew this would be an interesting experiment to put her 30 minutes outside the nearest town. We had climbed the 20 minute drive up the mountain in my father's SUV, as my little runabout couldn't make the climb. As we hopped out of the car, and large wolf spider dragging her egg sack sat in the driveway greeted us, as if to say, "welcome to my humble abode." This did not go over well with Ally, so we headed inside.

Three trumpeting Jack Russel Terriers ran to our feet to tell us everything they had been doing for the last few days; and once everyone had settled down, we got the tour of the "cabin" (which is NOT a cabin by any means) and the four of us caught up. Here's one of the great things about isolation in a place like this - you can really focus on the people, and really talk and engage one another. I don't think we get enough of that in the city.

The inside of the house is absolutely gorgeous and amazing, with a wonderful kitchen, watch-out tower-office for my dad, a living room with satellite HD tv, Nintendo Wii (a gift from my mom to dad last Christmas), built in speaker system, and the quaint decorations and style of country meets New England. It's exactly what my parents need - every convenience you could imagine, space to entertain, and the peace and quiet that can only be found with years of dreaming.

Allison and I retired to one of three guestrooms on the lower floor, making me feel back in New England with greatly heightened beds, pastel colors, ceiling fans, and tall bedstands. Allison went to the bathroom to get ready, and I prepared a movie on her laptop to fall asleep to. I pulled back the covers and hopped into bed, and immediately smelled something 'funky.' The odor was the same as moldy sheets, and my first thought was that a window had been left open, rain had come in and molded into the sheets. I pulled the sheets to my nose, but smelled nothing. I began to look around the bed that I was laying in, and spotted a dog toy sticking out of my pillow case. How did the dogs get their toy into the pillow case I wondered, and reached down to pull it out. I was sure the slobber-soaked dog toy would be the source of the odor, and I gave it a squeeze to be sure what it was. crunch crunch it went, and I figured the object was one of their fake chipmunks they threaten and destroy around the house. I grabbed the toy and pulled it out to face level, at which point the smell became extremely pungent and I realized what I held was not a dog toy, but a shriveled up dead squirrel. I tossed the corpse onto the bed sheets, and hopped out of bed, of which I now saw squirrel droppings littered around. (Yes, go vomit now, shower, and then come back). Allison came in and said, "what's wrong?" and I, dancing around in my underwear trying to shake off the willys, just said, "we're moving!" and began to grab bags and take them to the other room.

30 minutes later the pillows and squirrel had been thrown away, the sheets were in the wash, and the windows were open with the fan blasting. Everything disinfected, dad and I laughing and surmising how the little bugger became lodged in the pillow case, Allison and I settled into a different cozy guest room and watched a little bit of Religulous before falling asleep. As I laid the computer next to the bed and lifted back up to snuggle under the sheets, my giant noggin connected with the lamp and popped the bulb, blowing the breaker on all the electricity on the lower level. "Goodnight," I whispered in the dark. "Goodnight," Allison responded. Wolf Spider, dead squirrel, head-electricity failure - and I hadn't even seen the lake yet.

We awoke the next day to light rain, and dad and I headed off to "town", A.K.A. Tazwell, for supplies. We did a little grocery shopping in this very tiny town (seriously, NOTHING going on), but it was nice to have this kind of isolation and quiet. No dogs barking, no traffic, construction, radios blaring, planes, helicopters, drunk people yelling at each other. Heck, out by the house there are no telephone poles or radio towers. It was wonderfully peaceful.

Upon our return, Ally and I were put to work. Mom gave us a weed whacking tool, and Ally and I were assigned to "Pokeberrry duty," more graphically and appropriately pronounced "pokeburry doody." The bean stalks of a weed had popped up in the flower beds all around the house, and we went to whackin'. After that, we were assigned to paper wasp nest spraying duty, which we dominated and became enemy #1 of anything with wings and stripes in all of TN. We finished up the chores of the day with discovering freshly hatched baby birds outside the front door, and dad and I built a new

bedframe for the bed Ally and I had stayed in (not that we had broken it with our humongous urban weight, but they had simply ordered a nicer one and hadn't had the time to put it together).

Ally and I spent the afternoon sitting on the middle of three decks reading and watching the rainstorm slowly re-approach from the west, and we tucked in to make dinner as the rain began to spatter on the deck.

We all made a team effort to make a delicious dinner and break in the dining room as we listened to the rain trickle off the various surfaces of the house and the soft jazz coming from the satellite radio. With the meal complete and dishes clean, Ally, my Mom and I set to playing Wii until the wee hours of the morning, so much that our elbows were sore from Tennis.

At ten a.m. dad rapped on the bedroom door and said I had to come outside. As I stumbled and rubbed my eyes as if waking up on Christmas morning, I walked out on the lower deck to see a beautiful view that I could hardly believe. Bright blue sky illuminated an endless reflective green lake (as if Caribbean water) in a sea of lush forest made of a cornucopia of greens. Not a motor echoed through the valley, nor a plane disturbed the clouds - just the gentle rustle of crisp, clean wind strolling through the hillsides. And just like Christmas, I ran to wake up Allison and come look at the sight. AND just like an expected sibling, she pushed me away to let her sleep. Ah well, this morning is mine alone to savor.

Dad and I worked more around the house, at one point discovering a Black Widow down by the heating unit. I had never seen a Black Widow in nature before, and as I ran to grab my camera, dad ran to grab the spider spray. He let me catch a few shots before he drowned the little thing in white spider spray, and as it crawled beneath the deck in a pathetic drag, I swear I could've heard a faint voice say "Rose....bud...."

Shortly after the carnage, we rustled Allison to come down to the boat. After navigating the partially sunken dock by the gorgeous clubhouse, we set to work cleaning dad's pride and joy - a beautiful 8-person deck boat with cream, navy blue, and gold colors (hmmmm, strangely resembles Penn State......). It's NOT a sailboat, which I'm a little bitter about, but it's still a heck of a ride. I'm holding by my deal that I'll pay for 1/2 a 2-man sailboat of dad goes for it though.

After giving the boat a good scrub down and the white shone bright in the afternoon sun, dad eased her out of the slip and into the smooth lake. What a ride! With the stereo blasting some great country music my brother had burned for my dad for Christmas, we soared across the lake at 46 m.p.h. without a hiccup (once figuring out the proper trim of the propeller). The moment of truth came - dad handed me the wheel.

He would point various directions of different points to check out, and we'd zip across the lake with Kenny Chesney and wind whipping through our ears. Norris Lake has 500 miles of coastline, and I'm looking forward to finding ever foot of them. After exploring a channel and lapping a few islands, we gassed up the puppy and headed home, as the clouds closed in and threatened rain again.

On the drive home I called 10 of my best friends and have already coordinated an awesome vacation week at the end of July, and am headed back next weekend with the family for Memorial Day Weekend.

Three levels of beautiful deck, a porch swing, outdoor fireplace, screened in porch, shotty cell phone reception, sketchy internet, an amazing view combining the wonders of the world, and not a sound for miles. It kinda makes a guy like me want to quit life to write and chop wood the rest of my days. If PR doesn't end up working out for me, you'll know where to find me. As my brother said, you have to pinch yourself to believe it really exists, and that we have it the rest of our lives. I can picture 4th of July fireworks over the water, a Christmas tree covered in snow on the deck outside, and little family members and friends' kids running around the rosebushes looking for Easter eggs. It's an oasis, and something I look forward to creating hundreds of memories in during the decades to come.

This Little Piggy Ran to Market

I ran in the Flying Pig Marathon again. I know, I know. I'm a liar.

After the debilitating pain (ice pick, remember?) of last year's 10th Anniversary Flying Pig Marathon, I swore I would never run another marathon again. The excruciating pain of limping seven miles down Eastern Avenue with IT Band Friction Syndrome picking it's way through the soft tissue of my left knee convinced me of that, as well as the prison-camp style diet and completely non-existent social life.

[Quick aside, quicker than Sonic the Hedgehog's double-tap left: For those of you who are newer readers, my whole blogging career got started last spring when CiN Weekly picked me up to blog for them about my first year ever running a marathon. At the conclusion of my ~28 chapter memoir, I vowed never to run a marathon again.]

And true to my word, no marathons have crossed beneath these knees since.

In January, my generous place of employment (keeping head low to appease the gods), asked if I would head up their Flying Pig team. In years past, they had attempted to assemble people to participate in the weekend events; however, out of the rank and file of ~200 employees of various skills and merits, usually two would take on the half marathon or 5k. They assumed that since I ran The Pig (grumble, cuss word, sinister slur) last year, I'd be more than elated to take it on this year.

Those who can't do, teach. (This is a lie, but the statement fits my attitude toward me accepting the role)

I sent out the usual mass emails; and with the help of a couple other excitable staff, we scheduled a couple info sessions for our runners.

I began a weekly email blast to those who expressed interest the first couple weeks, creatively titled "Weekly Flying Pig Email." In these emails I would take 1/3 of the document to coordinate business (getting people registered, giving directions to Saturday morning runs, collecting money, etc), and the other 2/3 of the email offering a topic of the week, discussing nutrition, shoes, running gear, stretching, the day of the marathon, etc.

It always blows my mind how much I actually learned about health and exercise during those five months of Flying Pig training last year. Granted, I have been into health and exercise for

about five years now, but marathon training accelerated that education a million times a minute. I feel like everytime I throw some stat out there about health, someone outside of the marathon community goes "bah, he only did it for five months, how does he know?" But here's the thing - for five months straight, you think about or live marathon training. That's, on average, sixteen hours a day. You're envisioning runs, eating healthy, taking stairs instead of elevators, strategizing, upgrading gear, hydrating, and then of course the exercise and strengthening. So for five months straight, which is twenty weeks, which would be 140 days......times 16 hours........I spent 2,240 hours focused on achieving one task and one task alone - crossing the Pig finish line

. For a little easier number to swallow, 2,240 hours / 24 hours = 93.33 days / 7 days = 13 weeks / 4 weeks = Three months and ten days I was solidly focused on that achievement, without stop. You learn something well in that time.

So each week I threw out my tid bit of insight to the group; and by mid-March, we had 17 people running or walking the 5k, 10k, relay, or half marathon. The most in the company's history. I attribute the success to begging Finance to give each person $12 off their Pig registration....gu

h, I hate groveling to people who wield calculators. Ugh. But it's true...make it cheaper, and they will come (get it right, Costner). 

It finally struck me that I should probably join the ranks of the athletes, and give it a try. My ankle had suffered a sprain in the fall due to a twice rolled indoor soccer injury, and I had pretty much quit exercise since November. My jeans now leaving an irresistibly sexy imprint on my

 waste when I took them off, I was in prime distance running condition. But, I didn't suffer any chronic pain from my ankle, IT Band, or Oshgoodslaughters (god I love my left leg), so I felt daring. I talked around the building, and was able to convince three other crazy souls to attempt the relay with me. A relay, I could pull that off! .....gulp.....

Before the week of The Pig, I had probably run a total of ten times within the year prior. I was out of shape, eating insanely unhealthily, and truly embarrassingly unready. But hey, you only live once, right?

As none of my other teammates had run the whole marathon before, I let them pick and choose which legs of the relay they wanted, as I had already "seen it all." To my dismay, I was left with the longest leg; 7.67 miles of small, rolling hills. However, on further examination, it was EXACTLY what I had hoped for. Not only would I run through the neighborhood where I grew up, but I would get to run past mile 19. Damn you mile 19........

In last year's marathon, mile 19 is where the pain finally became so unbearable in my knee that I had to give up running, and walk the remaining seven miles to the finish line. So this year, I had been given a golden opportunity - I could run right past the spot where I had to stop last year, stick my tongue out, and laugh at it. It was game time.

Just like last year, I awoke somewhere around 4:30 a.m., as we all had to report to downtown at 5:30 a.m. to catch our school buses (I know I had to have been sitting on some 2nd grader's boogers he picked on the way to school on Friday) to our various relay spots. Allison was kind enough to get up pre-dawn and drop me off downtown among the masses (which, it's REALLY creepy to see hundreds of people walking around downtown in the pitch black of 5 a.m. in reflective gear). In the drizzling rain I found my bus, hopped on, and closed my eyes to nap.

Somewhere around 6:45 a.m. we pulled up to the backside of the Hyde Park Kroger, were

 dropped off and the buses skidded off to wherever they keep buses when they're not being used (have you ever wondered that? Where buses go without kids? It's a creepy mystery, like hidden elephant graveyards......).

So there we were, hundreds of us stranded in an empty parking lot in the rain with no shelte

r and nowhere to sit but the wet ground. It was awesome, let me tell you. And so I waited, and I

 waited, and I waited. I saw "the elites" glide by at an insane clip, as we were stationed at mile 12, and they were silent machines that floated by on the wet pavement. So. fast. Around 9:30, I

 saw my Hyde Park leg partner trotting up to the group wearing a pig mask (really?) and shouted for the exchange.

And so I took off. this year, no freaking Batman tool belt of salt, food, water bottles, cell phone, & grappling hook - that weighed me down too much last year. But this time it was an overcast, cool misting spring morning; and besides the blubber I had packed on for hibernation throughout winter, I was light on my feet. 

I made it a point to thank people who were cheering us on, stationed outside of the big sections of groups, raking up water cups, and handing them out. As I approached a water station, I'd point to some tired little kid and shout, "you're my girl/man" a

nd snatch the water cup from them. It was so much nicer not to have tons of water strapped to my hips, and just a bag of Shot Bloks pinned to my shirt.

As I reached the intersection near the Eastern Drycleaners in Mariemont (halfway done), I spotted three friends from work (two of which ran the 5k) and Allison, who all subsequently lost their freaking minds with noise makers and glittery signs as I came by. I said it last year and I'll say it again - the most refreshing thing in a race is to have people there to cheer you on. When I came by the second time, I even swooped in for a smootch with the lady - I was feeling good....

Although I wasn't flying by like I did last year at a speedy 8:15 pace, I trotted along strongly at what I would guess was a 9:25 pace. Not fast, but not walking. I always said that marathoners hate relay people; because marathoners are at their most tired the second half, and refreshed relay runners who just started are blazing by. Yeah, I felt like a jerk as I passed person after person, and was never passed myself. I encouraged TEAM in Training participants as I passed them on their long journey - and a part of me wished I had with them again, but the bigger part of me was glad that I tried it, but don't need to go down that road again.

I ran down the exit ramp off Columbia Parkway towards Eastern Avenue, and it struck me that there was no pain in either my knee or my ankle - I didn't even have a cramp. Last year, tears had begun to trickle down my face at this point and I was choked up, as I had come to accept that I would not be running across the finish line, but walking. But this year, as I saw the mile 19 sign approaching and I ran forward strongly, I muttered "you're my b&%ch mile 19" and glared down the double digits. 

Mile 19 came and went, and as I neared the "finish line" of my leg at Linwood and Eastern, my cheer squad came into view again, plus my father. I can't lie, I had a little choke when I saw my dad. I so badly wanted my parents to see me run strong through the finish line in 2008, but felt a disappointment when it was more of a hobble. To see my dad seeing me running strong with a smile on my face, even if it was only after 7.67 miles, made me feel redeemed, proud. At 100 yards, two of the squad, Allison and Kris, ran up next to me to cheer me in. I felt good, and with a cheeky grin, said "you guys ready?" "For what" Allison responded, and I took off on a dead sprint to the finish. I felt strong, I felt good, but that doesn't mean I didn't collapse on my back sucking wind after I crossed the finish line and tagged our final relay member. Yeah, my knee felt great, but that doesn't mean I wasn't carrying a year of pizza, beer, and burritos in my waistband. Pizza DELIVERS fast, but doesn't run fast.

After I was hydrated back to normalcy and stories of the adventure related, I parted ways with the cheer team and hopped on the bus to head to the finish line to catch my team. We waited. and we waited. and we waited. A woman on the other end of the bus driver's radio, let's call her Barb, was ordering the driver to stay put and wait for one runner, who was about 30 minutes out from meeting us. The rest of the bus, plus two girls who worked for The Pig, wanted to leave so we could end our trial. The driver wanted to leave too, but the non-logistics moron on the other end of the radio insisted we stay put, despite the fact that the driver could get to the finish line and back before the runner arrived (did I mention we were packed 2-3 to a seat?) As a joke, the driver said over the radio, "well I really want to go, they're threatening to beat me up over here. They're hungry!" We all kind of chuckled; and although no one wished violence on the driver, we did really want to go.

After about 40 minutes of waiting, Barb, in all her trailer trash glory of fake bake and huge poofed blond wig, stormed onto the bus. She had driven in to give us a talking. Mounting her yellow steed of bus-i-tude, she said to the driver, "Are you alright? If anyone threatens my bus driver, they can get off this bus and walk home," and she said this in the most serious of tones.

Now the bus got dead silent, and no one said a word. And before I could stand up in the footsteps of Spartacus and rebuke, she dismounted and stormed off. I had wanted to say, "Hey, NO ONE gets off this bus. We all just ran 7.67 miles, some of us for cancer, some of us for diabetes, some of us for kids who are dying right now in Shriner's. We're tired, hungry, thirsty, sore, and some of us are injured. It is NOT a ridiculous request for us to go to the finish line to be with our loved ones. We did our job, now you do YOURS!" Of course, like every great comeback for a diss, insult, breakup, or idiot driver, I thought of the line 15 minutes later as I smoldered to myself on the ride to the finish. You got away THIS time, Barb.....

I met up with my team for a photo op, and spent the rest of the day relaxing on a couch watching movies and sleeping with an icebag on the knee.

I finished it, without any physical therapy or pain. I know it wasn't a full marathon, but it was a baby step. Ya know, the half marathon doesn't seem so scary next year.....