Friday, February 6, 2009

Flashback Friday: Sickly Start to the Year

My year started with promise. I finished off a record year by completing 1,000 miles on the last day of 2008. I got Baltika'd. And had a -- that is, one -- good week of consistent running and running faster. But then it snowed big time and then I got sick. Running, so far, has not been so far.

Here is January's statistical run down:
  • Total Miles: 36 (nine runs)
  • Highest Weekly: 18 miles
  • Average Weekly: 9.6 miles
  • Average Pace: 10:02 per mile
  • Longest/Fastest Run: 6 miles, 9:48 pace
This week, I haven't run a stride. Thankfully, I have that race tomorrow. I'm too much of a cheapskate to spend $20 and not run.

Back Talk
Wherein you get the idea without the long explanation.

A few of you responded to my sweet poetry with your own admonishable verse, but Jess's terse prose really hit me where it hurt. "Quit making up sicknesses as excuses for flooding the interweb with your bad verse!"

Answer: Shall I compare thee to a Florida retirement community? Thou art more pregnant and aught-tempered.

TFH's response to my haiku had a musical quality that read like free verse: "I'm sympathetic, but really, all I want to do right now is go wash my hands very, very thoroughly."

Answer: With free verse, you get what you pay for.

And lest we forget the enjoyable things in life, Vanilla showed his overreaching ignorance: "I don't get haikus. What's so special about a poem that has 5-7-5 sylables? Most of them don't even rhyme. All good poetry rhymes."

Answer: Sure, his follow-up comment corrected the spelling mistake. But we don't believe in revisionist history here at Team BHI.

Happy Hour is nearly upon us! Run headlong toward the weekend and into the closest pub. Run well and drink well, teammates. Cheers!

9 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

I have to leap to the defense of Sarah (D-MI)'s verse, here, brother. Any poetry that ends with the word "BEER" in caps takes the noxious anapests right outta my hexameter and soothes my savage man-breasts. Sure, it was a bit of a trip getting to that last word, but I hear there are people out there who run 26.2 MILES just to have a beer at the end of the trip - the idiots! So 11 lines of pentameter? I barely broke a sweat.

Sun Runner said...

I tip my hat to thee, Viper, for catching my pretty blatant cribbing of Shakespeare. You're a clever dude...when you want to be. Or when you choose to let slip that icy (iced-over?) facade on occasion. ;)

And, GQH: jeez, don't you know that real poetry-- both the creation and reading thereof-- requires real work? Man, I haven't exercised my iambs that hard since I was a senior in high school!

Ian said...

I prefer to think of it as a typo instead of a spelling mistake, but sure, go ahead and jump all over my flaws. I know that there aren't many so you've got to take what you can get. Now I’m going to copy and paste this comment into Word to check for mistakes so as not to be lambasted again.

Enjoy the weekend.

tfh said...

Good luck tomorrow, although it's always nice to have lingering illness as an excuse.

(I'm trying really hard not to believe in karma as I hit Publish...)

Sun Runner said...

P.S. The only reason I sucked it up and ran my 5K last weekend is because I'd already registered and it made my heart clench up to think of my $25 entry fee going to waste.

[Cheap] birds of a feather run together.

Good luck in your race.

Spike said...

Race well, fire-out thick snot rockets like they are early valentine gifts to your fellow racers, recover with ‘Adult NyQuil’ (aka whiskey).

Carolina John said...

Cheers, Viper. Good luck on the race tomorrow.

Jess said...

Ah, I see the cold medicine hasn't dulled your wit. Or are you creating Nyquil Sours there in frozen, frigid Akron and this is contributing to your ability to fire back?

If so, I hope the cold medicine cocktails help you run well tomorrow in your race!

Unknown said...

You would have soooo enjoyed the bike ride I did today!