Running? For charity? Are you crazy?

Scene: One of my friends, Lindsay, sent out a rather innocent email today, wondering if we would like to accompany her on a 5K run for charity, starting at 9 am, on a Saturday. The following demonstrates what happens when bored law students discover the “reply all” function.

Heddy G: Count me in! Do I get a tee shirt?

Me: I can run about a mile and half before I want to pass out. So, I’m going to vote myself out on this one. Have fun though.

Lindsay: Yes, you get a t-shirt, and for the rest of you…it’s only 3 or so miles and since I’m just getting back into the whole running thing…chances are I won’t be able to run the entire thing.

Me: Um, yeah, but there’s no way I’m going to make it the second 1.5 miles if I’m passed out on the side of the road, being trampled by the physically fit.

Lindsay claims that she is not, in fact, very fit and Heddy laughs at me, replying that her mental image is of me, passed out with a cigarette, yelling “stop stepping on me bitches!” This is probably quite accurate.

Me, responding to Lindsay’s claim: Whatever, Ms. "I have extra energy today, so maybe I'll go running AGAIN tonight, or maybe the gym." You know what I do when I wake up early enough to have some extra time to myself? I drink an extra cup of coffee.

Pink Pirate weighs in: I couldn’t run three miles if someone was chasing me with a knife, or Birkenstocks. I’ll stop with Liza Jane on the ground and we will have martinis and smoke while everyone else runs past. Perhaps we shall shout insults as well. I haven’t quite decided yet. P.S. I resent the “only” in Lindsay’s “it’s only 3 miles.”

PP then makes a list: Things I am willing to run for: Free food, free booze, shoe sale, George Clooney.

I second PP’s heckling suggestion, and she suggests some words of encouragement.

PP: “Move your asses, bitches!”

Heddy makes her own list of things to run for: free t-shirt, any of my top ten men, away from rapist, step toward 2-piece bathing suit, and kickball.

Big Booty Ho weighs in with a list: The opportunity to NOT get busted in BE for hiding behind my laptop and laughing, the opportunity to be the LAST person to cross the finish line in 5K race, behind the old ladies and the kittens, opportunity to run 5K race with a cocktail and cigarette, old men in tiny shorts.

PP: I think that we shall shout at people as they pass, esp. once I’m on my 2^nd martini. (Please imagine the cigarette, the martini, and the drunk voice. Oh, and the running clothes.)

This prompts a mental image of PP, in running clothes, on the ground, doing the drunk laugh that she does so well, while sloshing herself with vodka. Everyone starts giggling in class at this point, ducking down behind their laptops while turning red from the effort to stay quiet. PP and I see Big Booty Ho after class, who points out that we would need to move at least a bit in order to heckle the runners.

Me, in response to Booty’s suggestions: So, two options: (1) PP and Liza drink and drive, keeping a cooler full of Bloody Mary’s in the back, and driving incredibly slowly. (2) PP and Liza wait at the halfway point of the race, with aforementioned cooler, so as to provide both heckling and sustenance to fitness-crazed friends.

Option 2 won, that is until Emma came up with her own suggestions: (3) PP and Liza, wearing camelbacks full of vodka, ride bikes, drunk, swerving amongst the runners and avoiding race officials trying to kick them out. They try to give us sips without running over our toes with their tires, or (4) PP rides on my back, Liza on Lindsay's, pumping a mixture of Gatorade and tequila directly into our veins via rolling IV stands.

Obviously, option 4 won, thus demonstrating the problem of inviting the lazy and drunken to run for charity.