Dear Friends Who Run Marathons

Back in the day, it wasn't so hard for you to lord your bodily supremacy over me.  While my friends all played soccer and baseball, I was forced thanks to an enlarged heart to only play for the golf team.  The doctors have never adequately explained why I couldn't play strenuous sports because I was just too full of love.  While I was still able to get into a fight and have to be separated from an opponent during a golf match, the conditioning was not as complete as what my friends went though.  Therefore, while they all had beach bodies, I had the body and face of a massive toddler well into high school.

During college I hit what they call "rock bottom" in the "taking care of yourself department" thanks to drinking "ten beers in a sitting" and eating at "buffets" "every" "meal".  Finally, I'd had enough, and started a slow process of learning to eat better and that exercising could be done.  My formerly awful knees that would pop in and out of place at will and sounded like gravel being chewed felt much better once I was carrying seventy or eighty less pounds around, and things got even easier.  While I am not thin by a long shot, I am in decent shape, and I feel good.  While my friends have recently started grumbling that they've lost their abs, I'm just happy that I can finally see ribs that aren't on my plate.  So, when time and persistence on my part conspire to even the playing field.  I can imagine the meeting, at a long boardroom table, where they all figure out my weakness, and also figure out how to defeat Superman.   They've all gotten desperate, and taken this thing the the streets, where I can only do a halfhearted chugging jog, followed by three hours of groaning and hacking lung butter.

Whenever anyone is asked about how the marathon went, the word "hell" is always used.  It tends to be followed by "cramps", "dehydrated", "hallucinated", "exhaustion", "bowels", and "evacuated".  Immediately after all of that, that person always says, "It was so worth it!  Can't wait for next year!"

I don't need to get kicked in the neck to know it's going to suck.  I certainly am not going to pay for that privilege.  Maybe it's because my body is absolutely not built for running long distances.  Maybe I just miss that gene where a marathon seems awesome.  I am not missing the gene that tells you that extreme thigh chafing and severe bleeding from the nipples is a bad thing.  If I wanted to pay for that, I'd listen to that server they call Weird Ass Daryl from work and go to that "Korean Grocery" he keeps spending all of his time at on the weekends. 

You can have your marathons.  I'm still the best at other things, like dancing to Billy Joel songs, making delicious sandwiches, and yelling at people in Target.  All of these things are on my business card.  Is "Good at running" on yours?