Saturday, April 03, 2004
Beer, donuts and a jog
Baton Rouge is not known for many things. It is, of course, the backdrop to Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," it has one of the strangest looking capitols in the nation, it's crime-ridden and, lastly, it's very fat.
Yes, between the Cajun food, the sedentary life a brutally hot and humid summer brings and the general sloth of the football watching beefers here, we are awash in people painfully unaware of what their own genitalia look like.
Rather than treating this fact like a drunk uncle and pretending it doesn't exist, the good folks at the Fat Boy 5K embrace the Louisiana lard so prevalent in our fair city.
I'm not sure what possessed me, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning and ran in the Fat Boy 5K. It wasn't all fatties, either: the 15 or so fit people in the city limits came out and there were plenty of average looking folks among the cornfed giants. During the first leg of the race I was behind an older guy in Confederate flag running shorts and I made damn sure to beat him for the good of the Union.
After finishing the three miles in the middle of the pack at a respectable (if unspectacular) 28:33, I grabbed (I'm not kidding) a (few) beer(s) and a donut, all included in the price of admission. Just for good measure, I had a cigarette with my friend to cap the event. Add to that the sausage lunch they provided and I can't think of a better pick me up at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday.
Later on, Baton Rouge culture really shined when the race organizers started throwing out free shit to the crowd. Every once in a while they would throw out a pack of sausages and there was a palpable buzz in the crowd followed by pushing and shoving to pluck the valuable processed meat from the air.
If only working out could always end in free beer and donuts. I'll have to drop that suggestion to the YMCA.
Yes, between the Cajun food, the sedentary life a brutally hot and humid summer brings and the general sloth of the football watching beefers here, we are awash in people painfully unaware of what their own genitalia look like.
Rather than treating this fact like a drunk uncle and pretending it doesn't exist, the good folks at the Fat Boy 5K embrace the Louisiana lard so prevalent in our fair city.
I'm not sure what possessed me, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning and ran in the Fat Boy 5K. It wasn't all fatties, either: the 15 or so fit people in the city limits came out and there were plenty of average looking folks among the cornfed giants. During the first leg of the race I was behind an older guy in Confederate flag running shorts and I made damn sure to beat him for the good of the Union.
After finishing the three miles in the middle of the pack at a respectable (if unspectacular) 28:33, I grabbed (I'm not kidding) a (few) beer(s) and a donut, all included in the price of admission. Just for good measure, I had a cigarette with my friend to cap the event. Add to that the sausage lunch they provided and I can't think of a better pick me up at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday.
Later on, Baton Rouge culture really shined when the race organizers started throwing out free shit to the crowd. Every once in a while they would throw out a pack of sausages and there was a palpable buzz in the crowd followed by pushing and shoving to pluck the valuable processed meat from the air.
If only working out could always end in free beer and donuts. I'll have to drop that suggestion to the YMCA.
