Reckless racing

A couple of weeks ago, I received some very concerning news.

Don’t worry, it’s not cancer or anything. Although if I’m being perfectly honest about my health, I will divulge that a recent routine health screening revealed that I, Brooke High-Strung Andrus, suffer from high blood pressure. Shocker.

No, this particular bombshell came not from a medical professional, but from the infinite Internet time-suck known as BuzzFeed. The undisputed king of trivial lists, laugh-out-loud GIFs, and snarky commentary recently ventured into new territory: interactive quizzes.

Now look, I am fully aware that these quizzes are the epitome of meaningless frivolity—a digital metaphor for everything that is wrong with America. But like KFC, Lunesta, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, these silly little questionnaires are habit-forming. Eventually, you simply won’t be able to go on with your day until you know BuzzFeed’s opinion on which Girl Scout cookie you are or why you’re single. They’re basically the Generation Y equivalent of newspaper horoscopes, and most of the time, the results are pretty harmless. You might think, “You know what? I am a Tagalong. Thank you for enlightening me to this very important analysis of my personality, BuzzFeed!”

But every once in a while, you’ll get a result so horrifically appalling that it will stop you dead in your tracks and force you to completely reevaluate your life. Such was the case when I took the quiz titled “Are You Ready to Have Kids?” Here’s was BuzzFeed’s advice to me:

 Image courtesy of buzzfeed.com

Yeah. Scary. Obviously, I had to take BuzzFeed’s two cents on this particular matter with a grain of salt. I mean, let’s be real for a second: I live in an apartment with a hot water heater the size of a beer keg and shoddy electrical wiring that prevents me from running the dryer and the microwave at the same time. I put off removing moldy, rotting leftovers from my refrigerator in hopes that a tiny fridge fairy might come along and take care of it while I sleep. Perhaps worst of all, I believe it is 100-percent acceptable to wear socks that look like this, because come on, the rest of the sock is still totally fine:

 As you can plainly see, approximately 99 percent of the sock remains intact.

Also, I have to question the accuracy of any quiz that doesn’t offer “Every Taylor Swift Song” as possible answer to the question “What’s your relationship status?” Still, even with such glaring fallacies, I knew the quiz couldn’t be completely devoid of meaning. I just had to read between the lines a little bit.

Clearly, the BuzzFeed powers that be didn’t just take my quiz answers at face value; they used them as a series of tiny windows from which they caught a series of tiny glimpses into my very soul. And from the sum of those glimpses, they drew the only logical conclusion they could: “Here’s a woman whose idea of a great Friday night is a bottle of Yellow Tail and a shitty David Duchovny movie on Netflix. Seriously, could she be any more uncool? Jeez, lady, go lease a Dodge Grand Caravan already!”

After noodling on it a bit, I concluded that the quiz geniuses at BuzzFeed weren’t actually telling me to have a baby; they were merely telling me to stop acting like I’m about to have a baby. To stop being so predictable and responsible. To go out on some limbs and take some risks more daring than buying clearance meat or parking in a spot marked “For Jimmy John’s Customers Only” before walking straight through the doors of Chipotle. (To be fair, I really did feel like I was living on the edge of the law. It said violators would be towed at the owner’s expense!)

So, as an answer to BuzzFeed’s desperate plea for me to stop wasting my youth, I pulled the most insanely reckless move that a straight-laced distance runner could possibly pull: I signed up for a 5K race mere hours before start time. Okay, okay, look: I’m never going to be Justin-Bieber-drag-racing-crazy, or even Tom-Cruise-couch-jumping-on-Oprah-crazy. But check this out: I didn’t taper at all, I drank multiple beers the night before the race, and I ate a pre-race dinner most competitive runners would consider pure suicide: spicy Italian sausage pizza.

If I still haven’t convinced you of how coco-bananas my spontaneous race sign-up truly was, take a look at this flowchart depicting my normal decision process for race entry:

But I didn’t limit my new, more carefree lease on life to the registration process. Oh no. When I arrived at the race to find that there were approximately 12 available toilets for a crowd of nearly 2,000 runners, I made the quick—and spontaneous—decision to forego my warm-up in favor of evacuating my bladder. When I caught myself waffling over whether to wear my long-sleeve top in the race—chilly morning, no warm-up jog—I promptly shut down the internal debate that was raising my blood pressure more and more by the second and spontaneously ditched my pull-over. And when, about a half mile into the race, I noticed that my forearms were going numb from the cold, I shrugged it off and thought, “Meh. Give ’em another mile.”

With about 1,000 meters to go, I zeroed in on a woman in the distance—the female leader, as far as I could tell. Instead of hemming and hawing over whether my legs had enough gas left in the tank to catch her—as my former, baby-ready self might have done—I picked up the pace without allowing a single “Should I?” to cross my neural pathways. And when I surged past her with the finish line in sight, instead of stressing over whether she would come back to edge me out in the end, I thought, “Let’s wrap this thing up so I can get my free pancakes.” (Yes, there were free pancakes—I didn’t throw the decision chart completely out the window.)

And as I consumed said pancakes while enjoying a bit of entertainment at the expense of the poor soul who was conned into wearing a plush pancake costume—again, the decision chart still applies here—I felt content with both my performance and my newfound personal philosophy of spontaneity.

Even during the awards ceremony, when I found out that I not only did not win but was, in fact, beaten by nearly a minute, I just shrugged my shoulders, nodded my head, and clapped my hands for the badass runner lady who was so fast that I didn’t even see her during the race. (Hey, at least I didn’t take yet another page from my girl T-Swift’s book.)

To be honest, I was kind of impressed with my own maturity. No wonder BuzzFeed thought I would make an excellent parent. Clearly, any children of mine would be perfect pictures of poise and sportsmanship—even if they had a few holes in their socks.

Eight crazy things that happened at my Turkey Trot

In honor of this year’s rare convergence of Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah—which, as every child raised in the Mountain West learned courtesy of Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song,” lasts eight crazy nights—I have structured this Thanksgiving blog post around this sacred Jewish number. Think of it as a literary menorah. L’chaim!

1.) I won a pie. And in the process, I became enlightened to the immense motivational power of this hallowed circular pastry. Titles, medals, trophies, scholarship dollars—none of these even remotely compare to pie’s exceptional energizing quality. Every time I caught a glimpse of someone in front of me who could potentially stand in the way of me and my soft, buttery, flaky specimen of baked excellence, this was my thought process: She looks like she could be in my age group. Okay, her calves have wrinkles and she clearly reads every issue of AARP The Magazine cover-to-cover, but there is freaking pie on the line, and I’m not taking any chances. What if she’s like the female Benjamin Button? Beatrice Button, prepare to eat my dust. Then, a few minutes later: Hmmm...that’s either a 12-year-old boy with exquisite bone structure or Keira Knightley’s American doppelganger. Either way, I will not gamble with androgyny. Time to surge.

So worth it. 

2.) I embarrassed myself while receiving said pie. Usually, when the time comes for me to accept an award, I am able to reign in my excitement enough to create a façade of maturity and sportsmanship. But when the award is pie, I completely lose my shit. (Which, I’m told, makes other race participants uncomfortable. Whatever.)

Actual video footage of me when they announced that I had won a pie. (Source: i.minus.com)

3.) A dude in rubber foot-gloves beat me. Perhaps my only regret of the entire day was failing to out-sprint the foot-shaped-flipper-wearing asshole I spotted in front of me near the end of the race. But alas, with my pie secured, I simply did not give enough of a hoot to rally my fast-twitch muscles (or what’s left of them) for a kick-driven statement against minimalism.

4.) I was nearly outrun by a “13-year-old” girl. (The quotation marks indicate my doubt of said girl’s given age.) Why the suspicion? For one, I refuse to believe that my athletic prowess is comparable to that of a middle schooler—a high-schooler, sure, but definitely not someone who just got the official go-ahead from the Motion Picture Association of America to watch Dumb and Dumber.

The wrong kind of turkey trots. (Source: photobucket.com) 

But more than that, a recent workplace step-counting contest tainted my trust in the competitive integrity of my fellow humans. Just as one can attach a pedometer to a Fido’s collar for a few hours to pad one’s weekly step totals, one can enter oneself in a less competitive age division in order to increase one’s chances of securing a pie. (Believe me, my running partner and I spent considerable time contemplating whether we could pass for a couple of 45-year-olds.)

5.) I ran a 5K “PR.” (The quotation marks indicate my doubt of the race course’s advertised distance.) As much as I would like to believe that I ran a community Turkey Trot faster than any of my collegiate 5Ks, I am a realist. Pie may be an incredible motivator (see item 1), but it’s not powerful enough to revert my body back to a level of fitness I will never again achieve.

6.) During the race, I burned a number of calories that represented a mere fraction of what I would later consume, but I nevertheless justified my consumption of said calories with the completion of said race. Like a dieter who hits up Dairy Queen for a “reward” after 25 minutes on the elliptical—I broke a sweat, which means I had to have burned at least, like 5,000 calories, right? One large Snickers Blizzard with extra chocolate, please!—I reasoned that my 5K effort would cancel out all the gluttonous activity on the docket for the rest of the day.

Source: quickmeme.com 

7.) I solved all my problems—save for the one above—courtesy of the problem-solving station. Yes, this is actually a thing, which begs the question: Where was it during that whole congressional standoff fiasco?

We got 99 problems, but lack of pie ain't one. 

8.) I inadvertently shed my amateur status by offering my official endorsement of a commercial product. After the race, an Aquaphor rep offered my friends and me some free product samples on one condition: she had to take a photo of us holding them. So yeah, now that my celebrity is being used to market healing ointment, I am, by definition, a professional athlete. Eat your heart out, Mary Cain.

How to get owned in a 5K

Are you tired of always crossing the finish line first? Does the thought of winning another gold medal/blue ribbon/gift card/souvenir mug/pair of men’s running socks make you want to light your racing flats on fire and scratch out the Prefontaine quote you so meticulously stenciled above your headboard? Do you need a swift reality check to cool your ego and crush that ridiculous pipe dream of “going pro?” If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, then you need to lose a race by an embarrassingly large margin—and fast! Based on my own experience racing a 5K in my hometown last weekend, I compiled the following step-by-step guide for running your way to a fantastically disappointing runner-up finish. Now, get out there and lose like a winner!

1. Train exclusively:

• on flat concrete paths
• at low elevation
• in temperatures above 100 degrees (that way, you’ll never go faster than 7-minute mile pace) 

2. Choose a race course that:

• is mainly dirt/gravel
• features lots of hills
• is located in a cool mountain climate

3. To promote maximum muscle tightness, select an event at least 1,000 miles away, book your flight for the night before, and put in a full eight-hour workday before boarding the plane.

4. When selecting your seat assignment, make sure you are surrounded by a half dozen screaming children whose parents are most likely deaf from years of auditory abuse—at least judging from their disinterest in controlling the volume of their unruly spawn.

5. Do not sleep.

6. To increase the chances of a major flight delay, travel as late in the day as possible.

7. Sit on the tarmac for two hours while engineers troubleshoot a “mechanical problem.” Let your paranoid inner voice convince you that this is code for “imminent engine failure,” thus signaling your adrenal gland to release of a healthy dose of cortisol into your blood stream.

8. Avoid using that tiny, despicable excuse for a lavatory by staying as dehydrated as possible.

9. During your layover, find the greasiest, most flavorless chicken sandwich you’ve ever spent $15 on. Eat all of it.

10. Arrive at your destination well after midnight. Do not go to bed until 2 a.m.

11. Toss and turn for five hours. Wake up unrefreshed and unprepared to compete.

12. Arrive at the race site 15 minutes before the scheduled start, allowing yourself just enough time to register, do three ominously laborious warm-up strides, and seriously regret your decision to show up.

13. Gasp and heave pathetically as you strain to keep up with the teenage girl who is kicking your ass.

14. Ignore the resulting chest pains.

15. Lumber across the finish line nearly 45 seconds after the first-place finisher. Wave awkwardly when the race emcee announces you as a “former star.”

Mission accomplished.

A perfect 5 (kilometers, that is)

If you’re having a bad day, you should probably stop reading now, because what I am about to say is going to make you insanely jealous of my life.

This past Saturday, I experienced a perfect race.

I used to think of a perfect race the way I might think of a mythological creature—something that simply does not exist outside of fairy tales and Nicki Minaj’s sexual fantasies. In my mind, a perfect race was like a unicorn, or a good Nickelback song, or a bag of microwave popcorn with no burnt pieces—it just wasn't possible.

Granted, “perfect” is a pretty subjective quality. One man’s perfect is another man’s 1994 Toyota Tercel. So, to clear up any confusion about my definition of “perfect,” below I have listed my Personal Parameters of Perfection (oh yeah, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?). Obviously, these parameters are tailored toward racing scenarios. I think we could all agree that a general, all-encompassing Parameters of Perfection would include only one parameter: Brad Pitt.

My Personal Parameters of Perfection for Racing Scenarios

1. Temperature between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Wind so light it feels like a flock of sparkly fairies continually fanning your face with tiny palm leaves.

3. Flat, smooth course with very few turns.

4. Geographic location at or near sea level.

5. Field that is large enough to warrant chip timing but small enough that it is feasible to make multiple pre-race bathroom visits.

The Litchfield Park Friends of the Rec 5K satisfied all of these criteria. Plus, there was bouncy house at the finish! The only negative aspect of the entire affair was that I had to start behind a shirtless man with so much back hair that I can say, with 95 percent confidence, that he was related to either Sasquatch or the Kardashian family. Unfortunately, I was unable to snag a photo of him, but this detailed illustration should give you a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with:

To top it all off, I felt incredible! Seriously, if you train in a cold, miserable, high-altitude location, I highly recommend racing exclusively in Phoenix, Arizona.

Unencumbered by bulky layers of fleece and spandex, I felt light and free. In fact, I found myself intermittently looking down to make sure I was actually wearing clothes. (Although I would hope that my friend Kim—who, by the way, gets all the credit for finding this amazing race—would quickly alert me to that type of situation if it were to occur.)

I went out fast and worried that my unbridled excitement would end up biting me in the butt sometime during the last mile. Instead, I held my pace and felt invincible. I don’t mean to brag, but come on, how many perfect races do you get?

I sprinted across the finish line in 18:07 to grab first-place honors in the women’s race. To be fair, I have a sneaking suspicion that this 5K was missing a few meters. My pal Kim finished close behind me to snap up the silver medal.

I feel obliged to mention that although I edged out Kim for the win in the race, she later destroyed me in the tan-off that took place by her pool.

So even if you’re on the fence about the existence of unicorns, Sasquatch and perfect races, you now have irrefutable evidence that vampires are totally real.  

Just kidding around

This past weekend, I celebrated another milestone of hasbeendom: I attended a fun run as a—gasp—spectator.

Well, I was actually covering the event for the soon-to-be-Pulitzer-winning-publication by which I am currently employed, but still—I woke up early on a Saturday morning to go watch people run when I am, myself, perfectly healthy and capable of completing a 5K.

I even wore jeans. Jeans!

I felt awkwardly insecure in my virgin voyage into the “other” side of the racing experience. It was like stepping into a fitness-themed episode of the Twilight Zone. What was I doing interviewing other people about their races? My world felt terribly off balance.

After the runners took off, I wandered aimlessly around the starting area, unsure of what to do until they got back. Stupidly, I had left my cell phone in the car, so I was unable to engage in my signature uncomfortable-situation-mitigation maneuver—fake texting.

I moseyed over to the post-race snack table, where piles of bananas and granola bars awaited hungry finishers—because come on, wouldn’t you be completely famished after running an WHOLE 5K?

Suddenly feeling a bit parched, I reached out for a Gatorade but instantly retracted my hand as I realized that this was the first road race I’d ever attended where I was not entitled to partake in the complimentary food and beverages.

Just as I was beginning to think there was nothing worthwhile about this race—at least as far as I was concerned—the kids started trickling in.

Only they didn’t really trickle—they full-on sprinted. Every last one of them. Some had probably walked the other 4.95 kilometers, but damn it if they weren’t going to have their 30 seconds of fame over the last 50 yards.

I chuckled as I thought about how awesome it would be if it were acceptable for adults to employ the same racing strategy. I bet I would enter a lot more races if I jogged everything but the homestretch.

In fact, when—scratch that—if I finally attempt my first-ever 10K this summer, I’m going to keep this plan, which I have named the Imbalanced Pacing Strategy, in mind as a go-to alternative if things start to go sour.

I consider it an exaggerated form of negative-split racing, which in my book makes it completely legit.

And hey, maybe I’ll finally have a race finish photo where I look cute and happy.

A new "fun"tier

Still amped up on dopamine from my little Good Samaritan episode, I set out on a leisurely afternoon jog through my neighborhood. Although I had no intention of attempting another round of sprint intervals, I decided to take a route that passes by the high school track.

In the distance, I could see a crowd of people gathered in the stadium. As I got closer, I realized it was a group of high school track and field athletes. Track practice.

I stopped and peered through the chain link fence, overcome by the sort of wistful nostalgia Britney Spears might experience by looking at a wall calendar from the year 1999.

At that moment, I made the strangely painful realization that my days of reporting to afternoon practice were gone forever. I would never again be forced to complete crippling workouts that left me sore and fatigued for days. I would never again be expected to race so hard that I had to stagger to the bathroom and sit on the toilet with a puke bucket for half an hour. That made me sad.

But you know what? Britney (sort of) successfully revitalized her career, and I can too. You see, …Baby One More Time was the Britney equivalent of my high school and college racing career: the peak, the zenith, the I’ll-never-ever-be-that-good-again era of success.

Let’s be honest: Circus was no …Baby One More Time. But it was still a successful album, and you have to admit that Britney is still entertaining, whether she’s singing and dancing on stage or assaulting paparazzi with an umbrella. Circus is to Britney what 5K fun runs are to me. (I know, I know, it’s a terrible analogy, but I’ve been out of school awhile and my cognitive abilities have deteriorated substantially. Work with me.)

What fun runs lack in legitimate competition, they make up for in entertainment value and enjoyment. In fact, I might—scratch that, I will—even go so far as to say that fun runs are actually better than serious races. After reading the rest of this post, I think you’ll agree.

Why fun-runs are waaaaaaaaaayyyy cooler than school-sanctioned racing events: a post within a post (not to be confused with that dream within a dream Inception crap)

1.) Degree of pressure

When you and your teammates are getting reading to run a race that actually matters, everyone acts all serious as they silently change into their spikes, pin on their race numbers, and apply their Breathe Right nasal strips:

But at a fun run, the typical pre-race environment looks more like this:

(photo by Dawn-Pink Chick, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawn-pinkchick/)

2.) Uniforms

As a member of a school-sponsored team, you must compete in a (yawn) team-issued uniform:

At a fun run, you are free to choose your own uniform:

(Photo by Stuart Chalmers, http://www.flickr.com/photos/gertcha/)

3.) Expected effort

When you are competing for team points, scholarship money, or a spot on the varsity team, you are expected to look like this after you cross the line:

It is generally not encouraged to pass out, pee yourself, and/or vomit after finishing a fun run. That sort of behavior is frightening to young children and tends to put a damper on the festive mood:

Let’s take a look at a side-by-side photo comparison:

4.) Awards

If you win a race at an important meet (like conference or state), you’ll likely receive another boring medal or ribbon. (Woo. Hoo.):

But if you’re a top finisher at a fun run, you’ll probably get a supercool prize:

Like a trophy with a golden buffalo topper (a great conversation piece):

Or a beach glass sculpture thingy:

Or even a souvenir pint glass (perfect for drinking a much-deserved post-race bee—er, Gatorade):

On a completely unrelated note, today is my dad's birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!

Kilts & kilometers: the movie

As promised, here is the race video from Saturday's Run For the Luck of It! If you have trouble watching this embedded video, click here to find it on YouTube.

Enjoy.

The race that puts the "kilts" in "kilometers"

As I stepped out of bed this morning, every joint in my entire body produced some sort of snap, crackle and/or pop. My whole being was consumed by a single, all encompassing ache, and I wondered if this is what Charlie Sheen feels like every morning.

My hangover, though, was not of the hookers-and-cocaine variety. No, I had done something far more outrageous. I raced a 5K.

As you might remember from my previous post, I entered the race in hopes of reawakening my competitive spirit in a fun, friendly atmosphere. Well, that is exactly what happened…sort of.

In my college racing days, my pre-race ritual involved focused race visualization, an extensive stretching routine, a stomach-approved meal of plain noodles and water, and of course, an early bedtime.

After several years and countless repetitions of this boring regimen, it grew unbearably tiresome. I just couldn’t bear putting myself through it again, so I decided to establish a new ritual.

It involved thinking about the race as little as possible, eating a dinner of lamb stroganoff and beer, and ending the night with a concert fundraiser, another beer, and a scoop of ice cream. I went to bed feeling full, happy, and completely ignorant of the possible consequences of my irresponsible pre-race behavior.

I awoke feeling rested and calm as a cucumber. I ate breakfast, read the newspaper, played the free online version of Bejeweled—you know, all the stuff I’d do on any regular morning. I got dressed, laced up my shoes, and pinned on my race number. And that’s when—da dum (think Law & Order)—panic set in.

I started freaking out. I wondered if I could call in sick. Do people call in sick to races? My mind was spinning. I wasn’t ready for this. It was going to be a huge embarrassing failure.

I pulled myself together enough to drive to the starting line. When I got out, I felt an immediate sense of relief. How could I get worked up about racing people in green tutus and leprechaun costumes?

Then I spotted an old friend. She was completely hammered and slurring her words as she (loudly) proclaimed that she and I were going to “totally kill this thing.” So I would be racing with drunks, too. More relief.

She pulled me to the back of the crowd, where she introduced me to some of her friends, who I assumed were also drunk. Before I had time to push my way to the front of the pack, the race announcer was counting down to the start.

During the first few hundred meters, I cautiously jogged around men in kilts and women in sparkly shamrock skirts. By the time the crowd thinned out enough for me to settle into my normal pace, the leaders were well ahead of me.

But instead of panicking and attempting to make up all of the distance in one fell surge—as I might have done in the past—I just stayed calm, cruised along at a quick but manageable pace, and enjoyed the beauty and splendor of Missoula’s north side.

I was having a ball picking people off, when out of nowhere I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I looked to my left and was startled to see my parents driving next to me in their barely audible Toyota Prius. Electric hybrids might be good for the environment, but to unsuspecting road runners, they are really just a low-emissions accident waiting to happen.

Anyway, my cheer crew showed up periodically throughout the second and third miles, which provided me with a much-needed mid-race boost. “Go get those guys in front of you!” my mom squealed.

I was momentarily embarrassed, as I was sure “those guys” had also heard my mother’s comments. As I came upon them, I apologized for my vocal but well-meaning family. I moved past them, but as we approached the pedestrian bridge, one of them initiated a response-pass.

This guy—let’s call him Arm Sleeves, since he was wearing a pair of removable compression sleeves—blew by me as we started climbing the ramp to the bridge that spans the rail yard. As he made his move, he said something that was probably meant to be friendly and encouraging.

But I hate being passed, so it didn’t matter what Arm Sleeves had actually said, because to me it sounded like, “Ha ha, see you at the finish line, sucker!”

And just like that, my competitive fire was lit—and burning hotter than ever. In that moment, beating Arm Sleeves became the single most important thing in my life. As we spiraled down the ramp on the other side of the bridge, I took a moment to regain my composure. Then I moved in for the kill.

The final quarter mile was all grit and muscle memory. I ran faster than I’ve run in weeks. As the finish line came into view, I sprinted away everything I had left, convinced that Arm Sleeves was right on my tail.

When I finished, I spun around and realized that he, in fact, was not—but in my dash to cross the line before him, I had edged out a high school girl by a couple of seconds, which made me feel like a real bully.

Still, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t excited about earning the women’s title in the 2011 Run For the Luck of It. And in the process, I learned that racing success has nothing to do with eating plain noodles. It’s more about mental control, patience, and fabricated rivalries with otherwise friendly competitors.

Coming soon: RFTLOI race video

Mmm...dark beer and marshmallows

Attention everyone: I have an important announcement to make. I’m about to pull a Brett Favre.

No, not the kind that involves inappropriate text messages and an embarrassing national scandal. The kind that involves coming out of retirement mere months after hanging up your uniform.

The truth is, as much as I have enjoyed eating real food for lunch and being free from the obligation of daily practice, I have missed the thrill of competing. With outdoor track season rapidly approaching, the itch to race is stronger than ever. Online Scrabble tournaments just aren’t enough to satisfy my competitive urges.

Luckily, I have found the perfect event to kick off my post-collegiate racing career: an Irish-themed 5K in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. The only problem is that the race is this weekend, and I suspect that my fitness level has dropped significantly since the last time I crossed a finish line (at the Division I Mountain Regional Cross Country Championships last November).

To finish this race, I will probably have to rely heavily on muscle memory and the underlying threat of public humiliation. But since this is a St. Patty’s Day race, I will have one important advantage: my Irish family heritage.

You might find it hard to believe that I descended from the land of potatoes and leprechauns, considering my golden-brown complexion, long-legged physique and apostrophe-deficient last name. I anticipated your skepticism, which is why I took the liberty of conducting a meticulous scientific study to prove that my ancestors indeed hailed from the Emerald Isle. As you can see from the results, I was successful in my endeavor. I also inadvertently uncovered the reason behind my uncanny Chewbacca impersonation.

First, a pie graph representing my ethnic makeup:

Second, a photo of my shower. Yes lads and lasses, I even smell Irish:

So with the luck o’ the Irish on my side, I think my semi-pro debut has great potential. For an extra boost, I plan to eat a hearty pre-race breakfast of Lucky Charms and Guinness. I will also wear as much green as possible—perhaps an old Favre jersey?