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Pheidippides was, in fact, a Greek messenger and, as most of you have probably heard the story, was the man that ran 26.2 miles from the town of Marathon, Greece all the way to Athens. When he arrived he supposedly burst into the Senate and screamed “Νενικήκαμεν!” which, when translated into Ebonics means “Yo, da Persians was all up on our turf, but we be down-ass Greeks and we was all like ‘Yo Persians! Why you gotta be all up in our set like dat? You know we be rollin’ all up in here wit deeze chariots and Homie don’t play like dat!’ and we busted a [arrow] all up in they asses and told dem bunk muh-fuggas to get on back to Persia, ya heard?” which when translated into English simply means “We have won!”

Supposedly after that he collapsed and died from exhaustion…

Anyway, in honor of Pheidippides, Jaci and I have began a 16-week training program in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Half Marathon in Sioux City, IA (my hometown) on Oct. 19th. As if wedding planning wasn’t taking up a ton of our time already, we are now gradually working our way up to running 20 or so miles a week. What wedding planning?

I must admit, me running this half marathon is not simply in honor of Pheidippides. In fact, it has nothing to do with the man at all. You want the real reason?

THE WIZ

“The what?” you ask? The Wiz is a good friend of mine from way WAY back in the day. In fact, he is a groomsman at my wedding. His nickname derives from a shortening and misspelling of his last name. My friend Tim called me the other evening and informed me that The Wiz was going to run the Lewis and Clark half marathon and that I should do it. The Wiz is a cocky little pipsqueak and I immediately agreed to torture myself for 13.1 miles just so that I would not have to listen to The Wiz for the rest of my life about how he completed a half marathon and I didn’t. If you knew The Wiz and knew how much he likes to brag about himself, you would do the same.

But anyway, I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal  the other day about whom they consider to be the world’s top 10 athletes right now. I was surprised to see that no long distance runners were listed. I could not think of too many things in the world of sports that could possibly be harder than running 26.1 miles at at time!!!

Then I stumbled across a story about a man named Yiannis Kouros.

And HOLY BLEEPITY BLEEP!!!

This guy goes above and beyond the capacity of the human body. This guy is insane…a NUTCASE! Why his heart hasn’t exploded by now I have no idea. I would love to find out what kind of running shoe this guy wears and then ask the company that makes that shoe why the hell  they aren’t paying this guy a billion dollars in endorsements! What makes Mr. Kouros such an animal?

He is what is known as an “Ultramarathon” runner. He laughs in the face of inferior marathon runners who run a measly 26.2 miles. Pphft! Pansies! Then he makes a joke about their Mom and gives them a swirly. Then he throws their backpack in a tree. Then he steals a bike lock from some other kid and locks their bike up with it so they have to walk home…wait a sec…somehow I got to talking about my middle school years…

Anyway, check out some of the races that Yiannis runs and the world records he holds. These are absolutely atrocious!

DISTANCE (some of these I converted to miles from kilometers)
100 miles - 11 hours 46 minutes
621 miles - 5 days 16 hours
1000 miles - 10 days 10 hours

TIMED RACES (see how far you can run in “X” amount of time)
12 hours - 100.9 miles
24 hours - 188 miles
48 hours - 294.3 miles
6 days - 643 miles

You know that feeling you get when you say “I’m hungry” and then you see a commercial for starving children and you feel really awkward and weird? I am kind of getting that same feeling when I think about how nervous I am to run 13.1 miles. Then I think about this guy who has probably ran more miles in his life thus far than most cars have on them. Why the heck this guy wasn’t on the 10 Greatest Athletes list, I will never be able to understand. Oh yeah…I forgot to mention his wicked moustache.