"Let he who completes the fastest mile write the backblast." Malak 20:22
(Stray put virtual ink to the virtual quill and said quill to the virtual paper)
Captain Tantrum put together a team for Tuna. Was his aim to win? Was his aim comraderie? Was his aim to get a t-shirt? Maybe it was all three. A leader's gonna lead. And a team is gonna team. And this team throatpunched the gps watch, took it's lunch money and made it say "Matay" en route to a podium finish. Here is what you are allowed to know about it. All other details, stories, tales, and epic dramas are available upon request from "the 12" at coffeeteria.
12 of IsoLaKNtope's fastest assembled in the gloom of Lake Benson park in the town of Garner the birthplace of local political firebrand Gambini and the town that produced Isotope's most smoking hot M.
0629 Friday: Stray looking at the flag – "Hey why are we at half mast". That one got the #twss and other mind-in-the-gutter talk going that went downhill just like the course.
0632 Friday: Gambini gets us started.
1113 Saturday: Vandalay crosses the line with team in tow.
Malak Moleskin …. and other potent quotables:
- We had an aggressive pace plan and beat it by an hour. Goal was 30 hours and we were sub 29. We did it with steady, strong, confident running from Van 1 that carried the deficiencies of Van 2.
- Vandalay ended with a strong run and crossed the line 20 seconds behind the first team. That team however started 45 minutes before us. And if the starting official would have let us go at 0630 instead of holding for 2 minutes we indeed would have been the first team across the line.
- Things were said in the van that will not be recorded here, in order to keep Gambini's internet profile clean for future elections.
- If you tip well enough at a Waffle House, the waitress will spill a drink all over a table of your choosing.
- Hotbox's twitter game is top shelf. He is in the 99th percentile with GIF usage. But his live tweeting of leg 14 was epic. "I've got two in front of me, permission to kill?" When you can run 7 miles at 8 minute pace while tweeting, you are a dude
- Hippie converted from Catholicism to become Methodist at the pancake breakfast and is now officially on the prayer chain of the Snow Hill United Methodist Church Senior Saints Sunday school class.
- Stray is to Turnpike as Turnpike is to Jenny. Chew on that a minute and if you need help figuring it out then ask for it.
No vans were harmed during the running of this event- The official scale for drinks when you go out on a bender is from 0 to Tantrum. For example, why wasn't BEP down for breakfast. Well on a scale of 0 to Tantrum he was a 14.
- Jaws is getting enshrined in the Playlist Music Hall of Fame. A 29 hour 200 mile relay is a whirling dervish of emotions. You want the perfect selection for just the right moment of the relay…..Jaws is your man.
- If you have spent 24 hours in a van with some dudes, feeling all emotional at the strengthened relationships and bonding, and just want to open up and be vulnerable, but don't quite know the right song to fit…… Gambini is your guy and Dirty Dancing is your jam.
- What I learned from Leg 18:
- if you program your route on your watch, turn the damn navigation on. If the previous three runners carry a phone, you probably should too.
- expect the worst. That way the random red light going off into a field isn't a runner taking a piss or a van changing runners on you, but you would see it for the vigilante sign stealing rif raff that it was.
- karma is a bitch…….if you were that hooligan as a kid, then karma will have this generation's hooligan pay it back on you. Suck it up and tip your hat (but still throw up a middle finger).
- When you are in need, God will put a redneck with a truck in your path. So be a redneck. Look, many people will help you out. But a good backwoods redneck with a truck will help you out and leave you better off than he found you.
- Thoughts and Prayers to More Tuna More Sushi. They just couldn't hang with us. Found out they didn't even cross before 4pm. They were the epitome of the Jaws Postulate: you can run one leg, show me two, but show me three.
- It was the best of times, it was the whatevs of times. On a scale of 0 to Tantrum it was epic.
- With that said, Gambini and Stray enter Relay retirement. Going out on top as champions. (Or so we say for now…….who knows, we may Tom Brady this thing).