You Fuckers Are Ruining The Marathon: A Guest Post by Gent Nicely
7 Comments Published by Forty Minutes Of Hell on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 6:13 PM.
[Editor's Note: The following is a rant by a Mr. Gent Nicely. This man cares about running. The rest of us, frankly, couldn't care less.]
Hey guys, long time listener, first time caller. Little about me, I lack the coordination or temperament for team sports and so I run. And you pricks are ruining it! I gotta lot of problems with you people, and YOU'RE GONNA HEAR ABOUT IT!!! I figure I can do this one of two ways. An overlong, meandering, inchoate expression of blistering curmudgeonry with at least one ridiculously flawed metaphor, or a series of well thought out, concise pieces about all the things that stick in my craw and elsewhere, but that's really Jason's turf, and I wouldn't want to mess with his little fiefdom of the mind. Here goes nothin'!
1. Stay Out Of The Marathon, Deadbeat!
History lesson, the first guy to run a marathon goddamn DIED. Yea. And now celebrities, fatties, and fat celebrities are cheapening one of the most meaningful and apocryphal parts of my sport's history. A marathon is a grueling, brutal trial of your own endurance and self denial. It's not supposed to be a media event, in which you make that Burberry-draped, pet Tanqueray salesman of yours hold a Ziploc bag to collect your piss. You piss on the ground, just like everybody else! You hear me, Diddy! Piss on the ground! Next!
2. You Are Not a Runner.
No, you're not. yes, you are capable of running, much the same way that a blind, stumbling, placenta caked baby calf is. And the only mother cow who's going to lick your coat clean of flabby, squodgy afterbirth of fat and laziness is you. And given the choice between metaphorically or literally licking uterine lining off a cow, most of you would probably go with the latter, you sick lazy fucks. Completing a charity fun run, 5k or even, say, a marathon doesn't make you a runner. It makes you an obstacle to the real runners in the race. 26 miles isn't far. You can walk that in 6 hours, so if you can't get 26 miles out from under you in less than 3, you probably should just stay at home, licking the Helmann's jar clean. If you don't look like the unholy product of the coupling of a freshly released Holocaust survivor and a slutty strip of beef jerky, you don't stand a chance out there. That little attention hogging 8 year old, who's just *got* to muscle his way to the front, is lucky that runners are nimble, light and able to hurdle a 4 foot obstacle. That 'roided out leviathan? Congratulations, your calves are thicker than my neck. Muscle is dead weight, meatstick, and by running all you're doing is burning it up. I'm sick of circumnavigating you at the quarter mile mark. You probably think I'm being a sour bastard at this point. Imagine if you will one of your Ty Cobbs or Jackie Robinsons going out to catch a fly ball, and getting low bridged by some toddler dicking around in the outfield. Or Lebron or Kobe or Kanye or whoever the fuck trying to fight his way down the lane through a pack of frat brothers trying to raise enough money for charity to not get kicked out of their house for date raping freshmen. You'd want some exclusivity to your sport too.
3. This Is Not 'Nam, There Are Rules!
Although no one explains them running has pretty clear Do's and Do Not Do's. Do Not Swerve In Front Of Someone Trying To Pass You. This isn't Ben Hur, and you aren't Charleton Heston, and if you are you're a human piece of despicable crap anyway. If I'm running faster than you, I am going to pass you, and there is nothing you can do about it other than make me want to throw you into the nearest tree or lightpole. You want to pull that shit on a racecourse, fucko, paint a bunch of corporate logos on your car, join NASCAR, wreck and die. DoLose Graciously To A Girl. You're in an endurance sport. Women don't stand a fucking chance. The Men's world record is 13:19 for the 5k. Women's 14:24. And it's not because girls get barbies instead of trainers in school. The people who set those records never heard of Barbie, and probably didn't have shoes for most of their lives either. They had goats. If they're lucky. And now here you are, supposedly carrying around a Y chromosome and getting edged out by a woman. If you aren't running 17:00 or better there's nothing you can do to save face right now. You're in terrible shape. If you throw down every measly bit of exertion you'd been saving up like a hibernating camel (They do. The fact that you don't know only shows you're ignorant.) not only are you physically a waste of time and space (In the Fooouuurrth dimension!) but you're basically saying that you have an 8-year old's insecurities when competing against girls. Hope you got your cootie shot before the race, dick.
4. I'm Not Running "For" Anything
Running is about the only sport, correction, only REAL sport, (Nascar, Skelton, and Luge don't count, and you know it) in which every competitor is on his own against a huge field of others. It attracts loners and misanthropes like an abandoned cabin in the middle of the Mojave, stacked with guns, whiskey, and Bukowski. Just because I have a shirt that says cancer, or prostate, or whatever on it, does not mean I give a damn about any of these charities, or the people they help. I'm there to compete with myself, for myself. I'm trying to think of a cause despicable enough to illustrate my point, but all I can come up with is a mental image of a card-carrying NAMBLA member, standing in front of the open door of the furnace to some sort of steam engine, with a shovel full of little kittens. And he doesn't tip well. I would pay that man $15 to run in a race that he sponsored to allow him to keep doing what he's doing. $20 if the T shirt is cool looking.
5. I Like Skinny Girls, Ok!
I stand 5'11" and weigh 147lbs. Fully clothed. My body fat after coming off a long, inactive winter was 7%. I've named my ribs. And I eat like a goddamn bear. Or, proportinally to my weight, a bird. Look it up! But somehow I'm a shallow perpetrator of unhealthy body image because I think that paris hilton is the only person on the planet unattractively skinny. You show me a guy who wants a woman that weighs more than him, and I'll show you one of my wierd maternal cousins that we don't really talk to. My options are limited! Get off my back, Brewer! Ok. that felt good. See you guys probably this weekend, if I ever get my damn car fixed.
- Gent Nicely
1. Stay Out Of The Marathon, Deadbeat!
History lesson, the first guy to run a marathon goddamn DIED. Yea. And now celebrities, fatties, and fat celebrities are cheapening one of the most meaningful and apocryphal parts of my sport's history. A marathon is a grueling, brutal trial of your own endurance and self denial. It's not supposed to be a media event, in which you make that Burberry-draped, pet Tanqueray salesman of yours hold a Ziploc bag to collect your piss. You piss on the ground, just like everybody else! You hear me, Diddy! Piss on the ground! Next!
2. You Are Not a Runner.
No, you're not. yes, you are capable of running, much the same way that a blind, stumbling, placenta caked baby calf is. And the only mother cow who's going to lick your coat clean of flabby, squodgy afterbirth of fat and laziness is you. And given the choice between metaphorically or literally licking uterine lining off a cow, most of you would probably go with the latter, you sick lazy fucks. Completing a charity fun run, 5k or even, say, a marathon doesn't make you a runner. It makes you an obstacle to the real runners in the race. 26 miles isn't far. You can walk that in 6 hours, so if you can't get 26 miles out from under you in less than 3, you probably should just stay at home, licking the Helmann's jar clean. If you don't look like the unholy product of the coupling of a freshly released Holocaust survivor and a slutty strip of beef jerky, you don't stand a chance out there. That little attention hogging 8 year old, who's just *got* to muscle his way to the front, is lucky that runners are nimble, light and able to hurdle a 4 foot obstacle. That 'roided out leviathan? Congratulations, your calves are thicker than my neck. Muscle is dead weight, meatstick, and by running all you're doing is burning it up. I'm sick of circumnavigating you at the quarter mile mark. You probably think I'm being a sour bastard at this point. Imagine if you will one of your Ty Cobbs or Jackie Robinsons going out to catch a fly ball, and getting low bridged by some toddler dicking around in the outfield. Or Lebron or Kobe or Kanye or whoever the fuck trying to fight his way down the lane through a pack of frat brothers trying to raise enough money for charity to not get kicked out of their house for date raping freshmen. You'd want some exclusivity to your sport too.
3. This Is Not 'Nam, There Are Rules!
Although no one explains them running has pretty clear Do's and Do Not Do's. Do Not Swerve In Front Of Someone Trying To Pass You. This isn't Ben Hur, and you aren't Charleton Heston, and if you are you're a human piece of despicable crap anyway. If I'm running faster than you, I am going to pass you, and there is nothing you can do about it other than make me want to throw you into the nearest tree or lightpole. You want to pull that shit on a racecourse, fucko, paint a bunch of corporate logos on your car, join NASCAR, wreck and die. DoLose Graciously To A Girl. You're in an endurance sport. Women don't stand a fucking chance. The Men's world record is 13:19 for the 5k. Women's 14:24. And it's not because girls get barbies instead of trainers in school. The people who set those records never heard of Barbie, and probably didn't have shoes for most of their lives either. They had goats. If they're lucky. And now here you are, supposedly carrying around a Y chromosome and getting edged out by a woman. If you aren't running 17:00 or better there's nothing you can do to save face right now. You're in terrible shape. If you throw down every measly bit of exertion you'd been saving up like a hibernating camel (They do. The fact that you don't know only shows you're ignorant.) not only are you physically a waste of time and space (In the Fooouuurrth dimension!) but you're basically saying that you have an 8-year old's insecurities when competing against girls. Hope you got your cootie shot before the race, dick.
4. I'm Not Running "For" Anything
Running is about the only sport, correction, only REAL sport, (Nascar, Skelton, and Luge don't count, and you know it) in which every competitor is on his own against a huge field of others. It attracts loners and misanthropes like an abandoned cabin in the middle of the Mojave, stacked with guns, whiskey, and Bukowski. Just because I have a shirt that says cancer, or prostate, or whatever on it, does not mean I give a damn about any of these charities, or the people they help. I'm there to compete with myself, for myself. I'm trying to think of a cause despicable enough to illustrate my point, but all I can come up with is a mental image of a card-carrying NAMBLA member, standing in front of the open door of the furnace to some sort of steam engine, with a shovel full of little kittens. And he doesn't tip well. I would pay that man $15 to run in a race that he sponsored to allow him to keep doing what he's doing. $20 if the T shirt is cool looking.
5. I Like Skinny Girls, Ok!
I stand 5'11" and weigh 147lbs. Fully clothed. My body fat after coming off a long, inactive winter was 7%. I've named my ribs. And I eat like a goddamn bear. Or, proportinally to my weight, a bird. Look it up! But somehow I'm a shallow perpetrator of unhealthy body image because I think that paris hilton is the only person on the planet unattractively skinny. You show me a guy who wants a woman that weighs more than him, and I'll show you one of my wierd maternal cousins that we don't really talk to. My options are limited! Get off my back, Brewer! Ok. that felt good. See you guys probably this weekend, if I ever get my damn car fixed.
- Gent Nicely
Nicely done Gent.
I especially like the part about Kobe running through Frat brothers... and hope that one day I will be privileged enough to see that.
What made you so angry that you felt the need to write this? Don't you live in the Boondocks???
Point of Discussion: Tennis is a real sport where you are on your own, as well as golf. While they may be very WASP-Y sports...I play both of them and remember the time when I played in tennis tournaments and it sucked. A lot.
I also like that I can actually read the blog now...way to go Brenden, only took a year.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nine years of putting up with this man, but recently? There's this summer race series in this park out here. Same jackasses every month. So like Anna at Deep Creek, vitriol needed spewing. There's actually more to my general indictment of the kind of people who don't read this blog, but the full thrust got censored by the man. Too real for you B?
Tennis dude? Yea it's tournament style, but it's still one at a time. Imagine 300 people of all skill levels on an asphalt court, swinging wild. Which might be more entertaining than Kobe V. Frat.
For the record, this is still the only version I had e-mailed to me. I never got the alleged full version you claim to have e-mailed me more than once.
grant, learn to spell your friends' names. it's BRENDAN.
also, running is way more of a sport than golf. always has been, always will be.
both take skill, but you don't have to be an athlete to master the game of golf.
May I first say B, thanks for letting the whole story be told. I know it might have rattled a few of you high and mighty interblogging fatcat's cages, but it's never been about commercial success for me.
Also fuck you for finally putting it in when I get just enough material for another post, as long as I included that. The world's just going to have to wait to hear what I think of the yappy broad who hands out medals.