A note on marathons

As you must certainly know, I am no runner.

Even at the gym, where I'll try nearly anything, you are not going to get me to run.  It only took hyperventilating once in the 300 yrd dash for me to determine that is not natural.  President's Council my aaaa....***** 

Anyway, no need to get all wound up.  The Marathon I am speaking of is a metaphorical one, which culminates today as National Blog Post Month comes to its blissful and headachy end.   I hear so many of you talk about the mini-marathons you have entered, and the weekend 10Ks you are training for, and I said, well "tip o' the hat and god bless ye."  I'll be over here obsessively writing about it.  You have your pointless round trips to nowhere, and I have mine.  I expect we each do it because it hurts so good and we feel good at it.

Like you, I did a lot of planning -- that is, I actually listed 30 topics, and I had to pre-schedule some.  There were a couple of hard-training weekends, where I wrote a few in a day and laid them out.  Some turned out to be bigger than I had time for, so they will show up later.  I don't want to give them away now. Others I just found the meat in after the title:

• The fact that U of NM's yearbook used to be called The Swastika
• Peter the Great's cabinet full of dead animals in party clothes
• Squire Friddell, the Toyota Salesman for Life
• Kids Who Climb on Rocks.  (seriously, I had nothin after that - I found myself singing the Armour Hot Dog song, and thought -- how is that a category of kid?  And... who eats Armour hot dogs?  ew)
• A pile of repressed 70s memories topics you'll see later on
• And another attempt at the oldest unfinished essay in my draft pile -- 2007's The Hungry Gospel, which attempts to reconcile why The Gospel of John has no Last Supper in it. 

And unlike you (I imagine) I did not train every day and I didn't always give it my best.  I could have used a more driving soundtrack and a little less Power Bar.  I may have twisted a knee.  Or the truth.  But I made it to the finish line.

Lessons learned from this Marathon are that you may be more surprised than anyone when you kick it at the end and break the tape, even if you soil yourself in the attempt.

I will not be here tomorrow.  I can promise you that.  I am not gone forever.  But Miss Bender is behind on her filing.