Giveaway Winner and Freak in the Cereal Aisle

The winner of the $100 fitness challenge is #331 – DLW.  She wants to use the money to run her first marathon (at the age of 50!!) on May 1, 2011. Congrats!!

Moving on…

Today I rode the damn motorized cart at Target. I have been trying to avoid shopping because it is such a pain in the ass with crutches, but I couldn't put it off any longer. Here’s what annoys me about the cart:

1. No cup holders. Don’t they know the disabled like coffee?
2. When you back up the thing “BEEP BEEP BEEP”s like you’re a wide load coming through. It is so loud it’s like you’re on a construction site. My ass is not that large. Yet.

I couldn't muster the courage to ask someone to take my picture (“Hey Target team members! I have a blog!’ because who really cares), so I took it myself (I was feeling pretty serious about the whole thing):

 

Attention Target Team Members: There's a freak in the cereal aisle

Not to belabor the Boston Marathon registration/qualification subject, but check out these stats. Unreal:

Hard to say if it filled 65x as fast as last year because of the sheer increase in numbers of qualifiers (plus those backlogged from the previous year who BQ’d after registration closed), or if everyone freaked and bombarded the site all at once.

I thought you guys had some really good comments and insight regarding the qualifying standards and whether they should change. About 90% of you agreed something needed to give. Two comments in particular really stood out.

Dana makes some very good points that encourage us to look at the marathon itself, rather than just the glory of qualifying for Boston:

“Boston may be the oldest, have a lot of media coverage, a lot of prize money, a lot of hype, but for the middle of the crowd runner, is it really the best marathon? I would say absolutely not. Run Boston to add the finisher medal to your trophy case but with respect to the actual course, logistics of the race, quality of experience, etc. There are many marathons out there that I would easily rank above Boston.

Marathons are really about personal taste but for those of you reading who are not fast enough to qualify, don't get wound up about it, I would argue that there are better marathons out there that don't require qualifying times.

I have been running marathons and ultra marathons since 1982, I can't tell you how many because I stopped counting long ago. I grew up in a suburb of Boston and ran the marathon in 1983. I have been running the Denver Marathon for the last several yrs including this past Sunday. I have to say, I have enjoyed the Denver marathon far more than I enjoyed Boston and you don't need to qualify to run in Denver. Sometimes we make more out of the things we can't have than what they really warrant.”

The Mommy suggested the following in regards to possible changes in Boston qualifying standards:

“I like the idea of only having so many entries at each BAA Qualifying race for the top finishers in each age group (like Ironman), and you have to register right then and there or you lose your spot. That's gold.”

Just some food for thought,

SUAR