Loser Report

mr loser v the Pickle, an epic battle of monumental insignificance (3 of 3)

With approximately six kilos of meat making its way through twenty-five feet of intestines, I slept pretty well until the alarm blared at 4:30 am.  Resuming the role of Delta-sponsored travel zombie, I shuffled onto the overstuffed hotel shuttle and arrived in Findlay about lunch time.  After an afternoon of catching up, I punched www.ohiorunner.com into the web browser.  Given decent hotel treadmill slogs and outdoor clumps, it would be good to see what I had at a pre-Saturday-morning-basketball practice 5k.

Scanning listings, I found this.

 
Held in memory of Jodie Stearns, a Bowling Green lawyer, avid runner and pickle farmer, Bloomdale's event began at 8:30 am.  Stearns died in a hit and run accident while jogging country roads.  Her coward murderer -- and I don't feel that's too strong a word to describe someone who runs over another human and leaves the scene -- has never been found.  Hitting the martini shaker that evening, I toasted her memory and decided to chase the Pickle.

To offset the infernal cucumber's awesome dill power, I tugged on the gray LOSER Pride t-shirt Saturday morning.  That didn't seem to provide quite enough jogging mo-jo given today's super high stakes (sloggers beating the Pickle received a special prize).  Needing an additional boost, I yanked on the Green Lantern boxer shorts: attire both kids forbade me from ever wearing anywhere near them.  With luck, the combination of LOSER-Green Lantern might just be enough to defeat Pickle power.

Actual shorts on display at Meijer.  Get some while they're on closeout sale.

Arriving at beautiful Elmwood High School at 8:15 am, I registered, received yet another event t-shirt and encountered a vexing problem:  the shirt was yellow.  A terrible development given this morning's beat the Pickle challenge.  For, as you well know, Green Lantern's stupendous power ring -- while able to conjure untold miracles (basically anything the wearer can imagine) -- has absolutely no power over anything yellow.  Dern it all!

Unable to fight comic-book logic, I tucked the nemesis shirt into the car and joined 255 participants on the two-lane country road in front of the school.  In the middle of the pack twenty yards ahead:  the dreaded female Pickle outfit in a green t-shirt with black pickle designs, green shorts, green socks and a green baseball cap.  Post national anthem, Pickle Chasing began.  Stuck among the dilly-dallying masses on the narrow country road, I attempted to dodge bodies as the Pickle raced ahead, increasing the distance between us with vinegar-laden power.  Fifty yards into the event, I felt the patella knee brace slipping.  Three dozen strides later, it fell off the knee and down to my ankle, useless.

With three miles left to rumble, I faced a critical decision:
1) Stop to reattach the brace
2) Keep clumping

Clearly, a right and a wrong choice existed.  The right: stopping for thirty seconds to reattach the black brace and protect the wounded knee from further damage.  The wrong:  continue clumping in a stupid, short-sighted effort to finish faster than at the Docs and Socks 5k and maybe beat the Pickle too.  Being a reasonable, responsible adult, I trust you understand the choice I made.

Loose brace straps bouncing around my calf, I caught the clumping cucumber halfway into mile one and strode beside her for the remainder of it.  Thanks to adrenaline, the unprotected knee felt fine as the Pickle and I strode across mile one at 7:15.  A time slightly quicker than the Docs and Socks pace and on track to finish under twenty-three minute.  Either I sped up or the Pickle slowed because she disappeared as I jogged the country road loop and crossed mile two at 14:50.  Slower than mile one, but, if I picked it up a little, twenty-three minutes remained within reach.  Even better, the lungs and the knee felt fine.

Heading into the last turn before the final half mile dash to the finish line on the track within Elmwood High School's football stadium, a commotion arose behind me. The cause:  a late-race reappearance of the indefatigable cucumber.  Propelled by the yellowish tint of pure vinegar, the Pickle passed my hapless form.  With the patella brace bouncing every which way, I faced another "important" choice:  to continue clumping the current pace and finish behind the Pickle or to attempt to pick it up one more time to catch, and maybe even defeat, Ms. Dill herself.

Being a practical, mature adult, you know what I did.

Stomping past the pickle-covered menace, size fourteens stormed across the gravel path and onto the track inside Elmwood High School's stadium.  With my green-clothed adversary somewhere not-so-far behind, I bumbled a quarter of the way around the track before hearing the booth announcer bellow.

"The Pickle has entered the stadium."

Tepid cheers rose from the scattered crowd.  Working to ignore rising Pickle pressure, I pushed the tired form forward, reminding myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  LOSER/Green Lantern power, although clearly weakened by the abundance of yellow race shirts, might still be enough to beat the evil cucumber.

With two hundred yards remaining, the speakers re-bellowed.

"The Pickle's kicking it in, she's passing runners."

Don't look back, I mumbled to myself.  Keep those size fourteens moving.  You can do it; you can overcome the sea of yellow to beat the Pickle.  A hundred feet from the finish, the announcer yelled.

"Here comes the Pickle!"

Refusing to glance backward and succumb to her overwhelming dill power, I pushed toward the finish.  Only a few more steps and I'd defeat the galloping cucumber. Rumbling, bumbling and stumbling, I crossed the line at 23:16.  The Pickle's official finish time:  also 23:16.  But -- and this was critical -- I crossed first.

33 Badu, Jim M 46 23:16
34 Ashton, Diana PICKLE F 44 23:16

The official race results spell VICTORY for Badu!

Snagging the awesome bonus for besting the dreaded cucumber -- a snack size bag of pickle-flavored chips -- I handed them to the concession stand folks to resell and strolled into the finishers' tent.  Icing the knee, I thought about today's pseudo triumph.  The awesome combination of LOSER-Green Lantern power enabled me to beat both the Pickle and the Docs and Socks' 5k finishing time.

In retrospect, stopping to tug the patella brace into place would have prevented either of those.  Of course, if I'd stopped, neither the back nor the knee would still hurt.  And maybe more importantly, if I acted my age, I wouldn't be wearing Green Lantern boxers to races or would I?

 
Given their Pickle Chasing success, should Green Lantern shorts become the new travel attire too?  Can LOSER-Green Lantern power challenge mighty Delta?  You make the call, lol.

mr loser v the Pickle, an epic battle of monumental insignificance (2 of 3)

With multiple sessions being held at the corporate training center and all the facility's hotel rooms booked, Joe and I relocated to the nearby Marriott for the quick, in-and-out trip.  After tomorrow's sessions, we'd race back to the airport and, with luck, make it home before the witching hour struck.  Hitting the Marriott’s workout facility, I slogged four, pre-dinner treadmill miles in thirty-two minutes, feeling pretty decent and breathing even better the entire time.

The next morning, I hopped on the shuttle bus along with forty other people.

"Delta canceled my flight last night," I said to Joe.  "And there's nothing later, so I'm stuck here tonight."
"Why did they cancel it?"
"They must have found out I was on it."

After some argument, Delta issued a $200 voucher as compensation for the cancellation, but never provided a reason for it.  When you run the airline, you make the rules.  To whit: whenever you or I want to change or cancel a flight, it costs at least $150, if not more.  When Delta does it, it's "oh-well" time for us.

Due to an all-hands video conference, the training sessions broke at 10:00 am for ninety minutes and then an hour lunch.  Joe and I took advantage of the break to workout in the company's state of the art exercise facility.

"If someone steals our clothes," Joe remarked as we pulled on shorts, "and we have to run the sessions in workout gear, that will be the greatest LOSER Report of all time."

Luckily or alas depending on your perspective, no one pilfered our pants.  Post shower, we rejoined participants in the dining hall.  Completing the day's work, we took separate cars:  Joe to JFK and me to a Holiday Inn near LaGuardia.  At the hotel's check-in counter, I asked about local dinner options.

"If you want Indian or Thai, you'll need to take a cab," the clerk said.  "We've got the sports bar here, but there's a really good Brazilian buffet within walking distance."
"How far?"
"It's about ten blocks."

Thinking ten blocks nothing, I ambled into the crisp summer evening with pregnant, purple clouds looming overhead.  Two blocks into the stroll, the sprinkles started and I picked up the pace.  Four blocks later, doing an Olympian-style walk-run, I yanked the suit jacket over the buzz cut.  Wool proved a pitiful umbrella: a block later, racing tennis shoes splashed through expanding puddles seeking shelter.  Hiding under the awning of a Hispanic grocery store, I dripped and shivered beside a woman cooing Spanish to a baby in a stroller.

Ten minutes later, I sloshed into what can only be described as carnivore paradise.  If you've never been to a Brazilian buffet and like meat, go as soon as possible.  For, in addition to a crazy salad bar and steam table stuffed with fried yucca, plantains and oxtail, you received a wooden hour glass with red and green stripes painted on opposite ends.  With the green side up, the waiter ferried an unending supply of skewered delights to your table.  Red side indicated a meat stoppage to avoid a Monty-Python, one-more-wafer-style stomach explosion.

In total, the meat-a-tarian fantasy featured ten different succulent courses.  The best:  turkey wrapped in bacon.  Health advocates often carp about Americans' failure to consume enough vegetables.  If they actually wanted to solve this problem, they'd force salad bars to wrap broccoli and everything else leafy in bacon; that would cause a dramatic increase in vegetable consumption.

After clogging the arteries well beyond happiness, I ambled to restroom and found the basement walls adorned with framed pictures of Brazilian soccer stars and world cup championship teams.  Nowhere to be seen: the Earth's greatest cage fighter, Brazilian Anderson "the Spider" Silva.  Also missing, other stand-out, Brazilian brawlers like the Nogiera brothers, Lyoto "the Dragon" Machida, Junior Dos Santos and featherweight kingpin, Jose Aldo.  Given the buffet was a Zagat-rated restaurant, I decided to ask about the dearth of cage-fighter pictures.  Were the operators of this place real Brazilians or not?  But with the host seating another group of carnivores, I opted to burp and depart instead of staying to ask the unsavory question.  Does anyone besides me really give a care about cage-fighter pictures?  Of course not.

*****
Tomorrow:  final preparations for the epic battle

mr loser v the Pickle, an epic battle of monumental insignificance (1 of 3)

In the brightest day, in the blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's power, beware my might,
Green Lantern's light!
-- Green Lantern Oath

I think that pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is dill.

"Did you hurt your back again?" Asked Will as I attempted to launch the gigantic frame to full vertical from the padded blue kitchen-table chair.
"I think I screwed it up during basketball practice."
"How did you do that?"
"Must have pulled something while running a suicide."
"You're the coach," Will said. "Why are you running suicides?"
"Because the girls bet me I couldn't beat them."
"And you took up a bunch of twelve year olds on that bet?"
"Yeah, for sure."
"You know, you're getting too old for that."
"Maybe," I replied.  "But..."
"No, buts about it," Will said, cutting me off.  "I mean, c'mon, just who is the adult?"
"But, don't you see, I won."

In reality, I'd eked out the victory; size fourteens thundering across the baseline three strides ahead of Karrie and Emily. What really hurt: after witnessing the LOSER Olympics, Amy's younger brother challenged me to a second squeaker, a challenge which I -- being a "real" man -- accepted.  I lost by four strides to that speedy, smirking little shit.

At Friday's outdoor practice, the players' backs seemed to be functioning quite well (never fear, there will be a full write-up on summer b-ball.  What's the loquacious Youth Sports Manifesto without another chapter?).  The same could not be said for my lower lumbar region, which -- while nowhere near disastrous USA carpet-sniffing tour levels -- groaned and creaked like grandma's favorite porch rocker.

Wincing the next week, I stuffed a rolled up red Delta blanket into the seat for support while boarding a flight to New York.  Today's assignment: rendezvous with Joe K. to deliver simultaneous financial intelligence sessions to managers from across the globe at a public company's beautiful corporate training center in upstate New York.  When I trained for the first time at this company, Karen "warned" me things would change.

"Once you work with these guys," she commented, "people will look at you differently."
"What do you mean?"
"You're presenting at the premier corporate training facility in America for one of the largest companies in the world.  This is something to put on your resume."

Karen, as always, had been right.  When people learned about the company, they often saw me in a different light.  From my perspective, however, that seemed a bit silly because, whether I work with this firm or not, I'm still the same stupid, inept LOSER I've always been (and will forever be).  Still the same genius who stormed across hardwood floors to "win" races against twelve year olds and, alas, lose them to even younger kids (BTW: did I tell you I won that first race?).

Landing behind schedule, I ambled through LaGuardia's crowded terminal.  The company provided a limo service pick up for everyone visiting its facility.  You've seen these guys at airports standing near baggage claim holding signs with people's names, like Jim Bado, you failed to recognize.  For for the first time in four trips, I couldn't locate the driver.  Calling the limo company, the rep told me to stay put beside the coffee stand; fifteen seconds later he found me.

 
If they scrawled mr loser on the placard (i.e., my real identity), I would have found this guy without a problem

****
Tomorrow:  escape from New York