The Rural Bus Route: I hate running...yet I ran a really effing long way on Thanksgiving...

...brilliant strategy.

It was an idea born of the brain of my younger sister and her "workout center employee and student of health and wellness" boyfriend...that we (as in me, my sisters and our significant others) should get together and do a 5K run/walk on Thanksgiving Day for absolutely no freaking reason. Geniuses, the lot of them. I'm no better, however, considering I agreed to do it.

Now, I get excited for this type of thing. I like naming shit, making labels and T-shirts, deciding whether there should be a dedicated "reason" for doing it, giving people nicknames, deliberating about uniforms, etc. That, after all, is probably the only reason I agreed to be a part of this nonsense. After a surprisingly brief conversation, we decided to call it "Earn The Bird". My sister's boyfriend thought, originally, that it should be called "Burn the Bird" and should be run post-thanksgiving meal. This took all of two seconds to shoot down. And considering the fact that after dinner I felt like a dreary-eyed, pregnant Volkswagen, I think I would have had a hard time walking out to my car, let alone run 3 miles. So we went with the pre-meal moniker. However, I didn't want it to be so simple either. I always love it when things have either 1) GIANT acronyms running on for decades thereby rendering the use of the acronym itself completely worthless; or 2) when the titles of events are so long winded that no one really feels like reciting them completely. So while I thought "Earn The Bird" was fine as a shortened tag, I felt it would have a more mass appeal if it were called the "First Annual 2009 Greenwood Family Earn the Bird 5K Run/Walk". It rolls off the tongue...like that last bit of vomit after a night of hard drinking and jalapeno pizza poppers.

The standard uniforms began as a simple green headband. I didn't purchase these. Therefore, I do not know their significance. They were damned snazzy though, so I wasn't about to complain. However, it didn't seem right that we would do something as asinine as run 5K on a day of eating, football and general apathy, and just wear a stupid green headband with normal running attire. Therefore, I made the executive decision to wear something a tad more "formal". My first inclination was to find a pair of ass-hugging "Sub Four" running shorts. You know, the ones that show every single inch of one's vampire-white things and end just before a glimpse of the ol' booty? Would have been quite the show, let me tell you. I may have the LEAST attractive set of gams in the tri-state area. But alas, I could not find any available on short notice. Walmart didn't even have them. I decided on a set of Track and Field warmups that I still had from my Triple Jumping days at the University of North Dakota...aka...my athletic "hayday". They were ridiculous...so they fit the bill perfectly.

Speaking of Walmart...they did have a couple of the items that were even more important to a day of running than "sub fours". A week prior to Thanksgiving, I had gone to the doctor's office and he had cut a hole in my scrotum with a knife, yanked out each of my Vas Deferens though that hole, cut them with a scissors, burned the edges, tied them off and shoved them back in. Now, while it wasn't child labor (I've been reminded of this at least 35 thousand times by my saintly wife), it isn't "comfortable" to have the boys bouncing about for a half an hour just a week after having them manhandled like that. So while at Walmart I visited two specific sections. First, the unbelievably small and tight underwear section. I am a boxer-brief/occasional boxer wearer. I believe that my boys were endowed by their creator with certain liberties...one of which being the freedom of not having to share an inch's space with his next door neighbor. Wearing boxers provides them with that liberty. However, I did feel that after such trauma, they would enjoy the tight company of one another. I couldn't believe how many different types of these things there were. Normal briefs, Bikini Briefs, Low Rise Bikini Briefs, String Bikini Briefs....it was ridiculous. After looking through the choices, I decided I wanted black and white REGULAR briefs for this purpose. They would provide the structure I felt was necessary and they wouldn't make me feel like I was wearing panties...an important feature in my book. Well, as luck would have it, there were many other people wanting the same...because the only thing left in my "size" was a package of baby blue/navy Low Rise Briefs. Oh well, I had just gotten my nuts removed a week prior...manly pride was all but non-existent at this point anyway...whatdifference does it make? Well, I don't have much experience with regular briefs, but after prancing around in these slinky numbers, I am not going to be revisiting the feeling any time soon. Way too much of my pants were touching my skin. I wasn't comfortable with that small amount of fabric separating me from the rest of my family.

The second section I was determined to visit while at Walmart was for something that I hadn't entertained since about 7th grade...the "Athletic Supporter". I wasn't comfortable simply leaving my tender giblets to chance with a pair of cheap Walmart skivvies. I needed the added protection and sucktightedness that only a good jock strap will afford. In all honesty though, I really don't know what they feel like. As I said, I hadn't worn one since I was in junior high. This, despite the fact that my father grew up in a generation of men that wore a jock strap for everything even remotely physical. My dad wore a jockstrap swimming for Christ's sake. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he had worn one when we played catch in the back yard. Anything that would jostle about the boys, even slightly, required the jock. Oddly enough, however, Walmart didn't have any. Instead, they had what I can only assume is this generation's equivalent...a pair of "Compression Shorts". These are, essentially, just a very small pair of spandex biker shorts with a little spot for a nut cup (if one should have the need). For you ladies reading...like a male version of "Spanks". These were based on waist size. I wear a size 34 in jeans. Unfortunately, there weren't any adult sizes to match that particular waist size. I wasn't going to wear one that was too big either...I mean that would render them useless. I wanted my groin to appear as though it had been run through a Foodsaver vacuum packer. The last thing I wanted was a "relaxed fit" jock. So I opted for a large...in YOUTH sizes. It was a shot to my ego, but the waist sizes ran just short of my own and I was comfortable with the decision.

So the day arrived and we all got all geared up for the run. I had on my track plastics. My wife donned a Chaska Hawks HS Softball sweatshirt that she's had for around 15 years. My sisters wore assorted Dickinson High School "Midgets" apparel (yes, my high school mascot was a "Midget") and Mr. Athletic Workout Man wore normal running gear. Jeez...I wonder who's gonna win this race? The guy geared up for an actual run or the dude wearing retro track sweats and a set of testicles that had been swaddled in cotton and Lycra? Well, we set out at a very leisurely pace and eventually we separated into three distinct groupings. The route chosen by my sister and McRunsallthetime was kind of a bitch, having three very difficult hills (that Shanna and I RAN I must say) and there was a little bit of walking mixed in with the running. But we ALL finished the race, and we did it without collapsing or barfing or twisting/pulling anything. And it only took us 35 minutes! Some are saying "I could WALK a 12 minute mile pace". Well to them I say, "then do it...and shut the fuck up".

It wasn't until about 5 hours later, after having eaten a ton of food and drinking a couple glasses of wine, that I realized that I was a tad sore. However, the "low rise jockeys+youth sized compression shorts" did the trick. After all, everything on my body hurt like hell...except my balls.

Some more photos:

Lindsey working up a sweat BEFORE we ran.