Preempting Myself

Remember in the 2004 presidential campaign, when the Republicans "swiftboated" Kerry? I'm going to do some swiftboating of my own. Only in this case, I'm going to be playing the role of both Republican (revealer of incriminating events) and Kerry (attackee) and undercut my own future political career by relating some more random antics.

This actually works out quite nicely, as I despise politics, and have no future aspirations to run for office. In a way -- by recording my stupidity here in a publicly available blog -- I've preempted any serious contemplation of running for political office by crippling any of my own future candidacies. There's just too much incriminating stuff here that an opponent could point to in order to portray me as unfit for political office: My watching of Battlefield Earth as an indication of poor judgment (he'd be right); my refined taste for gourmet root beer as an indicator that I am an elitist who is out of touch with the common man (correct again); my troubles with the law as indicative of some buried anarchistic tendencies (debatable). Just to name a few disqualifiers.

So, future self: You're welcome, and you can thank me later.

But back to undermining myself with the latest adventure: The Run Amuck 5K in Maryland.

It was a 5K, yes, but I wouldn't call it a race. It was part-obstacle course, part-5K, part-"excuse for anybody to dress as weirdly as they want, minus the presence of ecstasy and glowsticks." Something about races that have you jump through tires, hop walls, and trudge through multiple stretches of swamp-like muddy water serve as an excuse to don strange attire. (My psych minor-receiving self has no logical explanation for this.) Headbands, dudes wearing animal print tights, etc etc.

Not one to be outdone, DJA sported some awesomeness, and even made on-site wardrobe adjustments to be more competitive in the appearance department:

Cutoff jean shorts: Check. Rope belt: Check
Improvised belly shirt: Check. Now we're rolling.

The most I could muster was tying my shirt to the side, a la the entire team of high school soccer girls I was asked to coach one summer (a story of torture for another day). Here's the Run Amuck Team photo:


And, the final, decisive nail in the coffin that was both mine and DJA's future political aspirations:


Whereas most races are held to benefit or raise awareness for good causes (ie cancer research, diabetes), I don't have the foggiest idea what cause my $40 entrance fee went toward. It could have gone to fund Nic Cage's next crappy, high-budget movie for all I know. As long as it didn't go to PETA, I can rest well at night.

The 5K itself was enjoyable. The most amusing part for me was not falling in mud; rather, it was the militaristic woman with short-cropped hair who happened to be in front of me for the first couple of walls we had to scale. The walls served as bottlenecks, so as I was standing in line to get over the wall, I mentioned offhandedly to my team that I should just go around the wall instead of waiting in line. The woman turned around and said "You'd better scale that wall, and you'd better get dirty! I want to see you dirty!" (emphasis was for real, and also represents an index finger wagging in my face) It was semi-amusing the first time, but by the second wall it had crossed over to and set up camp in the disturbing realm.

I promptly passed her after the second wall, and never looked back. Fear of that woman being somewhere behind me, yelling "I want to see you dirty!", was likely the strongest factor that propelled me to the finish line.

Anne M came out to support as well. She got an enthusiastic reception from the team afterward:


Now, to meet the genius who organized the thing. This guy gets people to pay him $40 so that they can run through mud. He would be a genius campaign manager for any politician-- but I guess that's not an option for me anymore.