The Smug Marrieds Guide To Marathon Running

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This weekend marks Blair's debut as a marathoner. He's running Grandfather Mountain, a race which boasts the tag line, "One of America's Toughest Marathons."

You wouldn't catch me running this race on a dare. The course begins at 3,333 feet and climbs to an elevation of 4,279 feet. Up, up, up, ow, ow, ow. But Blair insists he's going to be a "one and done" marathoner, so his rationale is why not make it count?

Observing Blair over the last 16 weeks, I've been amused by the differences in how we approach our training. So here for your reading pleasure, I offer...

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Let Them Eat... Wait, That's Not Allowed On This Diet

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Just when you thought ALL the funny material that could ever be written about cats already existed, a new book comes along to challenge your perspective and make you ask, "Huh. Are more jokes about overweight tabbies really necessary in my life?" 

The answer is yes, yes they are. I'm happy to announce that Ten Speed Press/Random House has picked up the contract on my next book. Does This Collar Make My Butt Look Big? A Diet Book for Cats will be released in Fall 2013. 

Similar to the set-up of my last book where each chapter parodied a popular self-help book on the market, this book attacks human diets and exercise plans and examines them from a cat's pont of view, which is is to say the diets are viewed while napping upside down over the edge of the couch. 

Needless to say, I've spent a whole lotta time this summer reading diet books. Paleo, South Beach, Atkins, Raw Food, Slow Carb, Dukan, all carb, no carb, fasts, cleanses, celebrity diets... there's no lack of material to pull from.

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Car Wash Meltdown

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I don't clean my car. There, I said it. While I'm borderline anal-retentive about cleaning toilets, kitchen cabinets, my purse, or the junk drawer, I ignore my car to the point of abuse.

It's not that I never clean it. I periodically run it through the $5 (no wax, no air dry) service at the local BP gas station when I fill up. But vacuuming the insides or polishing the dash? Not gonna happen. 

This causes best friend Trisha--a clean car fiend--untold levels of anxiety. Whenever I visit her she literally forces me to a "grown-up" (her words) car wash where I'm forced to pay the price of a nice dinner out WITH WINE for some teenage kid to buff my tire rims. 

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Smug Marrieds: Blair At The Beach

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Sometimes--often--okay, pretty much every day, I'm estatic at our decision to remain childless. I'm pretty sure having small people around that depend on me for food, shelter and spiritual guidance would disrupt that whole, "Me, Universe, Center" thing I've got going on. 

But I can't help but sometimes think what a great dad Blair would have been. Here are just a couple classic Blair-isms from our time at the beach: 

  • We're walking on the beach, looking for shells, examining washed up horseshoe crabs, when we come to this big brown blob, about the size of football helmet. It looks like a cross between a circle of wood and a fossilized horseshoe crab shell. "What is that?" I ask Blair. "Whale poop," he says confidently. 
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