Corrigan's Running Athletic Program (CRAP)

P.F. Chang’s Rock n Roll Marathon 2010

2010-01-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

This note is intended as a reminder so that I know what to expect next year. Any references to abortions, scantly clad women, etc are purely not intentional but does make this note intended for mature audiences only.

It’s ironic that the last time I physically felt this bad; I was in fact eating a bad batch of chicken lettuce wrap ups at PF Chang's. I should mention that even explosive diarrhea can’t keep me away from their Great Wall of Chocolate…but I digress…

So let’s get my time out of the way. I ran the first half at a kind of slow 2:10…and the second half was a painful three hours. It wasn’t even a situation where one bad thing after another happened. It was more like three bad things happening at the same time until some new pain creeped in.

I decided to sign up for this marathon a few days after running the Chicago Marathon in October. I honestly shouldn’t have gone more than a 10k today…but then what would I bitch about?

--The expo was good. It was a little creepy with all of the promotional people attacking you as you walked down the isles. It reminded me shopping in Nogales (Mexico), except the promotional people were all pretty and clean and the dudes in Nogales are not clean and want to harvest my organs.

--I showed up early to the race so that I could watch The Ultra Marathon Man Dean Karnazes run the marathon with a few other people as an “ultra.” They ran 4.8 miles and then jumped in and ran the regular marathon. In all of his books and running magazines he’s like super buff and stuff…but in person he was 4’11” and probably weighed 90lbs.

--I started too far up in the staging corals and ended up with the end of the 3 hour group. So of course I went out too fast…which is not a good idea when running 26.2 miles.

--The first two miles we were greeted by cheerleaders and a band. Not a bad way to start things.

--Overall the race would have been quiet almost the entire time if not for all of the different cheer squads. The best group of students ended up being the group at mile 12. They were all dressed up as superheroes! I got water from the Green Lantern.

--The race drink was Cytoplex or Cytomax or something like that. Not as good as the heavy duty Endurance Gatorade…but a gajillion times better than that horrid Tucon based Xood!

--Most of the bands were pretty okay along the route. The only two that were horrible were the high school garage bands. For the love of God, the only one that should be butchering a Bruce Springsteen song is the Boss himself!

--At mile three we were “greeted” by a group of Right To Life people showing us signs depicting abortions! Because everyone knows that marathon runners are always getting rid of babies after the race. I think I offended them because I was wearing the shirt* from my sponsor “The Fetus Killers.” Hopefully someday we can all just get along…

--At the 10k point, I was about 2 ½ minutes ahead of where I wanted to be. That’s also the time that we saw this young lady runner that was wearing lace underwear over her lace tights. I…I…I honestly don’t remember much else until sometime around mile 9…

--Around mile 9 my bad knee got worse. It started to get as big as a softball. I’m not a doctor but I have pretended to be one on several occasions.

--At the ½ marathon point I was at an exact 10 minute pace. The bad thing is that I noticed that my left leg started twitching and then locked up from my hip to my knee. Again, not a doctor but…

--I hobbled most of the rest of the race.

--One of the nice things that a few spectators did was hand out Kleenex. Oh yea, did I mention that I couldn’t breathe? A lot of people were hacking up stuff. Still not as gross as those Right to Life freaks.

--At mile 20 I had a priest jump out and scream at me. I think he was trying to motivate me. It reminded me of my days as an altar boy…but that’s a story for another time…

--At mile 23 the “5 hour pace team” passed me and some dudes I was running with. As soon as they passed we all looked at each other and let out a collective “F**K!!”

--At mile 24 there’s a huge ass hill. Who thought THAT was a good idea????

--With a mile to go I caught some lady that wasn’t wearing shoes. I totally beat her at the end. Take THAT shoeless lady! At least I think she was a runner…

--The latest stats show that 15,000 runners were expected to run the marathon. 8,000 showed up and only 5,691 of us finished. 50,000 runners were expected to run the 1/2 marathon. 25,000 showed up and only 21,460 finished.

--The nail on my big toe is turning black and will probably fall off. I'll make sure to include pictures when this happens...

*This of course is not true. I wasn’t even wearing a shirt. The Right to Life people thing was real though. Those freaks just scare me.
**UC

2009-12-31T14:23:00.001-08:00

Test

This is a test to see if I can blog from my phone. If this works I will probably never work again.

Tucson Marathon 2009

2009-12-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

Originally posted: December 27 at 5:38pm

Running up in Scottsdale this weekend brought back memories that I’ve surely blocked out for good reasons. However, once again, I feel the need to document these events for either my future Presidential Memoirs or what will undoubtedly become Exhibit H in some future trial. Here are some random thoughts before I suppress them once again:

- If the Chicago and Tucson Marathons were people, the Chicago Marathon would be George Clooney while the Tucson Marathon would be the mongoloid cousin that lives out back in your Uncle’s shed. You know, the one that everyone knows about but no one wants to make contact with. Don’t pretend like you don’t know.

- The “expo” was lame. It started at noon. Since this is Tucson, that meant that all of the workers showed up sometime around 12:30pm. I felt bad for the volunteers so I helped explain the chip system to a few new runners and even got to stuff bags with the parents of ultra-marathon great Pam Reed.

- I signed up to be on a relay team that consisted of two young ladies and two old guys. We thought we were being nice to let the girls run the first two legs of the race because it was a shorter distance. It turns out that the “Flat, Boston Qualifying Tucson Marathon” is actually an extremely hilly and rugged race for the first ten miles. Oops. Heh heh heh…

- The girls carpooled to their relay locations while I chose to take the shuttle bus to my spot. When I got to the spot to drop off my car I noticed that there were no busses and three girls standing on a street corner. These were not the typical ladies that stand on any given street corner in Tucson; they seemed to have all of their teeth and most of their hair.

- A bus pulls up around five minutes before we were supposed to leave. The driver said that he didn’t know that he was supposed to take us and he also didn’t know where he was taking us. None of us were surprised.

- The four of us got on the bus and sat towards the middle. The three young ladies were smartasses and a bit on the vulgar side when it came to talking about anything. I felt at home.

- Right before we leave a lady gets on the bus and sits right in front me. She immediately gets on her cell phone and decides to talk to anyone that would answer. There were 50 other empty seats on the bus and she has to sit in front of me. I am not an overly religious person but I will admit that I prayed that God would smite her. I figured it was going to be a long bus ride and He owes me one.

- It needs to be mentioned that the Tucson marathon doesn’t actually take place in Tucson. It starts up in a small town called Oracle. This town reminds me of that one movie with the hillbillies that try to make that guy squeal like a pig before sodomizing him…I think it was called “High School Musical 3”…or something like that.

- We stopped at the wrong place and nobody knew where we were supposed to go. I decided to run up a mile or so to see if I could get some answers. That was stupid. Luckily the girls on the bus made the driver come get me and we eventually got to the correct relay hand off point.

- I made sure to let the young ladies know that one of my teammates bedazzled our relay baton and that it wasn’t weird for a guy to run with a shiny stick.

- Our first runner arrived before I left and almost got ran over by a car.

- I took off too fast in order to show my new friends my spirit stick…note to self, wait until after the race to show the girls your spirit stick…

- Instead of the 9:04 pace I was shooting for, I ran the 8.4 miles at an 8:27 pace. I should also mention that at this time I did not have my billion-dollar shoe inserts and was instead running on two little pieces of foam taped into my shoe.

- I was able to pass the 4:30 and 4:15 pace groups and I am very happy to report that they weren’t douche bags like the Nike pace team in Chicago.

- After my race I must have been delirious because I actually took a cup of Xood. Xood is the official pretend Gatorade drink of the Tucson Marathon and is made right here in one of Tucson’s many meth labs. Xood tastes like monkey piss mixed with chalk that has then been strained through a dirty sock. It is probably the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth…and I went to college in Indiana so that’s saying a lot!

- Our 1st relay runner drove us to the finish so we could meet up with our final runner, get our medal and see what food they had. On the way we were almost killed twice.

- The first time was when we were coming up to a light. There was a police officer in the middle of the road that was signaling for us to stop. I guess we weren’t slowing down fast enough because he started flailing his pharmaceutically enhanced arms like one of those wacky inflatable arms guys that they use to entice you to come in and buy a cell phone. The car next to us decided to stop right next to the officer in the middle of the road. The officer, already experiencing roid rage, started screaming at the car and acted like he was going to punch out their window. I peed myself a little and then we left.

- A few blocks later it was time to turn left off of the main strip. I guess we weren’t going fast enough because the truck behind us started honking incessantly. Our driver decided to teach them a lesson by slowing down to around 4 miles an hour. I may have given the truck driver the one-fingered salute a few times but to be honest that’s just the way we say hello back home. The truck drove around us and slammed on its breaks. An old man gets out of the truck, gets a piece of wood out of the truck bed, shakes it at us, gets back in his truck and places the piece of wood in the passenger seat. I peed myself a little and then we left.

- We finally get to the finish line and most importantly the food. They had Nutella on a tortilla. It was awesome!

Chicago Marathon 2009 (part Duh)

2009-12-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

Originally posted: Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 3:23pm

There were a few things I forgot about that had happened during the race. I need to write this stuff down so that it doesn’t get left out of my presidential memoirs someday. The first was an amazing phenomenon that occurred right around the halfway point. I looked around and all of the women were gone! Then I started to notice a trend. All of the port-o-poties had huge lines of women standing…I’m not a math wiz…but around 10 port-o-poties with at least four rows of women standing in line…that’s like a thousand women waiting to go to the bathroom together.

The other repressed memory occurred when we crossed the bridge and turned onto Wacker Drive. Saying that name out loud has always made me giggle like a little school girl…and I’m not afraid to admit it. So as we cross over, I point up to the street sign and say, “Huh huh…Wacker..” The young lady running next to me gives a dirty look…and then runs faster to get away from me. I never saw her again.

A week after the race I tried running a nice easy 3 miles and experienced extreme foot pain. I haven’t seen a doctor in many years but new that I couldn’t go to the Urgent Care for fear of catching the AIDs or some new mutation of the pig virus. So it took a month to get in to see a family doctor and I ended up seeing the foot doctor a week after that.

Here is a short excerpt of the reason why I probably won’t go back to see any more doctors:

Doc1: So you’re fat and ran a marathon?
Corrigan: Yes. I just told you that.
D1: Wow!
C: I know!
D1: You’ve had major stress fractures before, maybe you have brittle bones like that one guy in the M.Night Shamalan movie…
C: The one where the aliens come down to a planet that consists mostly of water only to find out that water kills them?
D1: No…the one with Bruce Willis…
C: With that creepy kid that sees dead people?
D1: No…I think it’s Samuel L Jackson…
C: Snakes on a Plane?
D1: Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?
C: Tommy Boy! I love Tommy Boy!
D1: Who’s Tommy Boy?
C: Oh…
D1: Go get an x-ray.
C: Okay.

Doc2: So…YOU ran a marathon?
Corrigan: Yes. I just told you that.
D2: Wow!
C: I know!
D2: Looking at your x-ray, you came close to getting a stress fracture but instead just had a deep Metatarsal bruising (which I thought he said Menstrual so I giggled like a little school girl).
C: Uh huh (pretending like I knew what this pretty boy from Chicago was talking about).
D2: Here are some inserts to help out. You’ll need to get the expensive ones if you’re going to keep on running long distance.
C: Okay.
D2: And from now on you might want to think about sticking to 5 or 10K races.
C: I said my foot hurt…not my vagina...
D2: What?
C: So when can I get those inserts?

I’m still waiting on those inserts. I plan on running a 5K for Thanksgiving, a little over 6 miles as part of the Tucson Marathon Relay in December and the PF Chang’s Rock n Roll Marathon in January (2 marathons in less than 4 months…for those of you keeping score at home). There’s a 50 mile race in March but the deadline to sign up was in October…

Chicago Marathon 2009

2009-12-30T18:51:00.000-08:00

Originally posted: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 11:07am

This was my 1st marathon. Like most first times, I thought way too much about it, I cried a lot, it was over before I knew it, there are embarrasing pictures online, it cost $120...& I can't wait to do it again.

Here are some quick notes before I forget:

-the night before I was thinking about the movie "Run Fat Boy Run" & how he wakes up late the day of the race.
-my iPhone died during the middle of the night...& that's what I use for my alarm!!
-parked the car in dowtown Chicago @ 5:32am.
-the other 44,999 runners showed up @ 5:34am...so perfect timing!
-my aunt Bernie was able to get tickets for my ant Barb & my Dad to hang out in one of those fancy ass tents.
-that dude from the Six Flags commercials creeps me out. This has nothing to do w/the race...it just needed to be said.
-so I check my stuff in & head to the start...I look around & I'm just surrounded by buildings & lake michigan...no other runners.
-since I'm the first runner on the line @ the freakin Chicago Marathon...a worker comes up to me to make small talk. I don't want to tell the old dude that I haven't trained properly & will probably die...so I ask him if starting blocks will be provided because I plan on sprinting this mofo...he just looked @ me & smiled politely...
-other runners finally show up & give me weird looks because I'm wearing a trash bag...@ least I think that's why I got the looks...
-I finally got smart & started listening to my iPod when other runners started talking about their 20 mile training runs...did I mention that my furthest continuous run lately has been 9 miles & that I've really only been "training" for 3 weeks?
-experts say you should do this & do that to prepare.
-experts can bite my ass.
-at this point I'm w/my Nike pace team & in a sea of people...both intimidating & exciting @ the same time!
-we hear the screams and we know the race has started.
-it takes about twenty minutes to get to the official start line.
-this is why it's super important to start your own watch!!
-I wanted to hang w/the 4:45 Nike pace team in hopes of @ least finishing & maybe getting a good time...maybe under 5 hours?
-they went too slow so I caught up to the 4:30 group. The lead runner was a huge douchebag! He was talking about how great he was. I ran ahead of this group too.
-the people of Chicago are amazing!! We had screaming fans the entire 26.2 miles!!
-there were also a ton of funny signs. I think my favorite was "it's ok to poop if you need to"
-speaking of...I had to pee after mile two...
-by mile 3 I realized I was another 7 minutes ahead of pace...so no bathroom for me...the entire race..
-by mile 8 I was about 12 minutes ahead of pace & changed my goal to finish around 4:30...
-this was also around the time that dumbasses were pulling out their cell phones & texting. If you're walking or doing this as a fun run thats fine. But if you're in front of me & you stop to take a call...I will push you...
-made sure to stop @ every water station & drank the super Gatorade. Kinda had to chew it. It was awesome!
-the ground was so sticky it felt like running in a movie theater...
-later in the race they had powerade goo packets. It was like eating poop. I ate three...
-there were a few "hills" on the course...anytime we crossed a bridge. Most people around me were walking up it. This was when I sprinted.
-that proves that having sucky runs up mountains in AZ can help w/races in IL.
-something that kinda freaked me out was that I thought I saw Papa Corrigan in the crowd around mile 3 & again around mile 18. The second time I saw him a girl ran by with a sign on her ass. It said, "do it for Nana." As we all know, if a Corrigan is going to communicate from beyond the grave...it's going to be in writing on a hot girls ass...
-so Papa was there in spirit...
-i took each mile one @ a time & didn't start to feel tired until mile 22...where some jerkasses were smoking...boy it was nice to breathe in some smoke after running 22miles...
-mile 23 was the first time I thought that I might not be able to make it. Then I made a deal w/myself...if I came all this way & couldn't run 3.2 more miles, I would throw myself into traffic.
-I'm a good motivator.
-mile 24 it fealt like the toes on my left foot were broken.
-with one mile to go I knew that I would be close to 4:30...so I tried to push it...
-at the very end you have to go up a ramp & then down to the finish line. Right in front of me was a guy w/one leg and crutches that was showboating for the crowd. He kept waiving his crutches around. I wanted to shove him (to show that I treat douchebags w/dissabilities the same) but decided that the crowd would have probably turned on me. Suckers...
-so i finish in 4:29:23, #18,472 out of 45,000 people...sure only 37,942 ran...it's not my fault if people didn't show! (#12,294 male & #2,185 age 35-39)
-after the finish you spend about 20 minutes going through an assembly line.
-you get your fancy space age foil wrap to keep warm.
-they cut off your microchip
-they give you a bagel & a beer...did I mention how much I love Chicago?
-you get your finishers medal
-more beer + cookies, crackers, etc etc
-then you grab your bag that you checked in before the race. I was stupid & forgot to put my phone in the bag.
-I walked about 4 miles trying to find my family. NOT fun after running a marathon!

That's all I can think of right now. It took two days before my legs felt normal again. I have a head cold & I'm killing time @ midway airport by typing this on my iPhone....