Monday, April 18, 2011

Marathon Mommy Daddy Day!

Because we are horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten parents, we dropped Madeline off in daycare on our first official day of vacation so that Eric and I could go into Boston to have a quality day to ourselves.

(I wanted Eric to get a picture of my gleefully jumping into the air to celebrate our day of freedom, but instead, all he got were my not-so-graceful landings.)

 It may be worth noting that I am not a runner, nor do I  find running particularly interesting.  Every few years I take it up simply because I know it's a fast, easy, and cheap way to lose weight, but I do not enjoy it at. all.  After a few months, I inevitably get bored and lazy and give up.

In spite of the fact that Eric and I could only run for more than ten minutes if a very slow, but hungry, tiger were chasing us through the jungle, we spent our day watching the Boston Marathon.  

Why?  Because those people are fast.  And whenever someone is really good at something, it's always fun to watch.  I could watch someone vacuum his living room if he were the best in the world.

Today's winner finished in 2:03:02.  (A new record, p.s.) Excuse me?!  He ran 26.2 miles in the same time it took me to make my feet ready for sandal weather the other night?!

Fact:  It took us roughly an hour to eat an order of dumplings, two bowls of soup, and some rice with chicken at lunch today.  In that same amount of time that guy theoretically ran 13 miles. If we had eaten two orders of dumplings, added another beer or two, and tacked on dessert, it may have taken us just as long to eat lunch as it did for that guy to run an entire marathon!!

Also, my feet still hurt from walking back and forth across the city and standing on a crowded sidewalk for an hour to see better people than myself run by.  But, I can't complain, because I did not just run a marathon!
The runners get chips?!  No fair!

The craziest part about these people?  On the way back to the train, we saw them walking down the sidewalks on their way to lunch as if they had just finished a leisurely jog.  Every year we've gone to watch the race I've been amazed by this.  I'm pretty sure that if I just ran a marathon, I would be dead...like the first guy who ever ran a marathon.

Also, I watched the majority of the race through other people's mobile devices since whenever a runner went by, thousands of cameras and cellphones lifted in the air to capture the event, thus obstructing any view I might have possibly had.  So, technically, I did not see the marathon. I doubt very much if there was actually anyone there who saw the event with their own eyes instead of through the lens of some kind of machine.

Not that I can blame them, because unlike us, most of the spectators at least knew someone running.  If I ran the Boston Marathon, you'd better believe I'd require Eric get a good photo upon the pain of death.

Maybe I'll take another whack at running.  I did swear on the Internet that I'd get my frumpster off the couch.  I know I won't be running a marathon anytime soon, but maybe next year I can run from the train station to the sidewalk to watch...



P.S.  We also took silly pictures of me....Get it?


  

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