Thursday, August 14, 2008

Sparks 5K of Fury



A few months ago a couple of guys that I work with and I decided to challenge ourselves in a 5K trial. We all have different running back grounds and abilities. One guy is 36, 6'3" and weighs around 220. Slimish, but definitely not in shape. He started running last year for the first time and ran his first 5K in 28:10. The other guy is a natural athlete. He's quick but doesn't have strong endurance. He's completed 4 triathlons to date all at the sprint distance level. His 5K PR was 23:45. You know my story. Up to this point my 5K PR was 20:33. We decided to start training to better our times. The goal was to set a date and on that date we would meet up and try to beat our 5K PR. But that's not all, there was a catch. If you failed to best your PR, there was a catch. The first time we did it, we all bested our PRs. The first guy ran a 27:58. The second guy ran a 22:48 smashing his old PR, and I ran a 20:24. The penalty that time would have been to wear this funky purple shirt to the office. I was glad to see that one go by.


Yesterday we held the competition again. Same rules, but this time the penalty was to drink a Sparks Energy Lager directly following the run. Now, if you've never heard of a Sparks, let me tell you it's absolutely nasty. It's 16 ounces of pure foamy hell. It's 6% alcohol which I still haven't figured out why they add it to an energy drink. There was one little caveat. If you didn't puke after drinking the Sparks you had to run a lap of shame in hopes that this would encourage the reversal of said Sparks.

Everyone was nervous come race day. For weeks I've been at the track running 400s, 800s, and mile repeats. I knew where I had to keep my pace. I felt good about my chances, but you never know how it's going to go. The time I ran 20:24, I felt that I'd run my best. Luckily, yesterday I ran better. The track work paid off. I ran a 19:50. My first time official or not to go under 20 minutes. I dogged the last .1 so as not to ruin my chances of betting my time next go around. My fellow triathlete finished a few minutes behind me with a scream as he strained across the line. He'd beaten his time by 2 seconds. He was elated. Now for the big guy. I'd seen him walking a bit, but that was normal. He crossed the line at 28:09. He didn't beat his time. Sparks was in his future. We sat around him giggling like school girls while he downed the vile concoction. His belches and grimaces told the whole story. He downed all 16 ounces without puking, so there was only one thing left. The lap of shame. He said the Sparks was beginning to grow in his belly and it felt like a ton of bricks, but he ran the lap no less. He handled it like a man.

So what's up next? Well, the date hasn't been set, but the decision was made today that the next event will be called the Budweiser Clamato 5K of Fury. Yeah, Budweiser in all their wisdom has come up with a Beer with clam juice and tomato juice. I get shaky just thinking about it. I'm glad I dogged the last bit of that run because there's no way in hell I'm drinking that stuff.

Tailwinds....

5 comments:

Carrie said...

sounds like a good time. Way to break 20!

rocketpants said...

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!! Don't you guys have anything better to do. ?? OK running a 5K isn't a bad thing, but i guess that is incentive to run really, REALLY fast.

Paul said...

Hahaha! Dude that is freaking awesome!!!!

Yah the clamato beer thing is weird, but it's a Mexican thing and Budweiser just put it together for em so they didn't have to. All of my inlaws love that stuff.

Oly said...

Sparks?! Why didn't they name it WTF!?

Ha! great idea for a race, very cool.

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Mandie Hayes
mandie.hayes10@gmail.com