Where: Veteran's Park (21st & Boulder)
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Rumors abound that we’re going to have a Mock Run this Saturday. I suspect that everyone shares my shock and disappointment, especially after all we’ve been through these past few months of intense marathon training.
Just when you think you know someone, they show you another side, complete with make-up, wigs, and unnaturally form-fitting outfits – more than our poor eyes can handle. Saturday morning is still a few days away, yet I can still scrunch my brow, twist my head to lead with the good ear, and hear Brian shouting out his mocking insults as we pass by another magical staging mile marker. Mock us will you? We’ll have to see about that.
There he stands, one hand seductively placed on that abnormally roundish hip, and the other tightly clenching his fave announcing megaphone, while shouting out to passing runners in his sultry morning voice: “You call that running?” “Hey, that top doesn’t match your socks!” “Hey Larr-Am-Y, you know I’ll always look better in a pink tutu than you could ever dream of” “You’re not worth wasting sour rainwater on” and “OMG! There goes Rob – Did you know we wear matching Pearl Izumi’s?”
I mean, is this boot camp treatment really necessary to help us run better, to improve our dedication, to help block out the post “hit the wall” pains? Or is this mockery just another one of “Pretty Boy” Brian’s pretentious all too brief moments that help him imagine what it must feel like to wear the pants in a relationship?
Moving on, did I mention that I’m feeling just a tad bit betrayed? Our sponsors have requested that participants make a $5 donation for Saturday’s Mock Run. I thought the deal was that we were supposed to show up on a just barely in time basis, wipe the sleepy crustacions from our eyes, and literally suck up the training each week. In exchange, the previously considered great folks at Runners World would show up hours in advance, set up welcome tents, develop training routes, mark the turns to minimize LSS (lost soul syndrome), stage water and gatorade at strategic points, provide bottomless snacks and refreshments, have drawings and giveaways of invaluable merchandise, drive around and check on us during our runs, provide encouragement when needed, treat the wounded and injured, give us valuable running and training tips, arrange for guest speakers, coordinate guest sponsors, wait for the last runners to finish their runs to make sure everyone was safe and accounted for, and to even go out and sweep the trails if someone was feared to be missing. I mean, even though it was roughly a 51 (us)/49(RW) deal, and not wanting to quibble, it was close enough to call it even.
Well, I guess a $5 donation is reasonable after 6 months, and it really isn’t that much. I mean, after all, what’s a few days of going without electricity … or indoor plumbing … or being able to buy week old bread? Plus, in a pinch, the plasma bank is always taking deposits.
Always scheming up a plan, I’m willing to “process” everyone’s $8 donation (small handling fee included – cash only please) and make one big presentation to Coach K (not Brian of course – even Coach K doesn’t trust him with that kind of scratch) – in the spirit of servitude and efficiency.
So, in closing, Saturday’s Mock Run starts at 7:30 AM (same time as the Route 66 Marathon in 2 more weeks), at Boulder Park. Please show up a little early, get those Mock race numbers pinned, check out your training partners/partnerettes in actual daylight for a change, and get charged up with those ever exciting and invigorating turn by turn course directions and last minute training tips.
NOTE: We will NOT be starting Saturday’s Mock Run from the BOK Center. If you go there by mistake, you are hereby instructed to run counter clockwise around the BOK until the start of the 2010 Tulsa Run.
Larr-Am-Y
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