Boulder “Back Roads” Half Marathon – September 2007

Race Number 11 (89 to go)

As told by Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies (excuse the spell’ins, I spells the way I talks).

Hey, yu all. Jed here reportin’ for the Ozark Skunk Gazette on the Boulder BackWOODS Half Marathon rite here in the backwoods of hippie-ville (Boulder, Colorado). My distant Lebanese cousin, Mikie, is running with Jethro, Ellie Mae and Amy Lou Bloom (Editor’s note: Amy is the JA parent Mike has run with at Disneyland) and it seemed fittin’ to tell you what these pole cats are doin’.

Don’t seem right that the chillin’ did not eat Granny’s cookin’ before this race. When I runs the Kentucky Half Wit Marathon some years in the past, the hogback, gizzards, and crawdad compote made me run reals fast (right to the darn outhouse to be exact). Anyone who has gawked at Jethro or Ellie Mae knows Granny's cooking is nutritious. Whens I run the “Boulder 10,000 Meter for the Stars and Bars Saloon,” I tries Granny’s new rec-i-pees for possum, squirrel and groundhog, but thems hearty traditional meals made me stop at every one of thems port-o-lets that these so-called backwoods “natural and holistic” folks in Boulder seem to have scattered all over the countryside.

It was darn rite cool at the start of the race. But a used trash bag over Mikie’s skinny body kept the kid (kid!-he ain’t no kid-he’s an old poop) warm. We sure did not want hims to get p-new-moe-nie (pneumonia).

Mikie and Amy Lou started the race facin’ the 25 knot wind and the poor kids had to run UPHILL for most of 6.5 miles. Thems kids ran a smokin’ hot pace. Theys run by thems outhouses (why do they even have thems outhouses out there-In my hollow, me just use a tree), a goat farm (for reals), and a pasture farm for animals (not sure what they do there). Strange that there were no cee-ment ponds (swimming pools) to cool off in during the run. I think that would have been rite nice of the race promoters to have provided that. The only critters to be seen was a dead snake on the road. Amy Lou picked it up to use in her fay-ver-rite road kill dinner recipe she was gonna fix for her man that night.

Well, about mile 11 prove ex-cite-ing! Amy Lou starts runnin’ like a bee-stung cat and she leaves Mikie in her dust. Now Mikie was fixin' ta try to catch her but he had no moe water in his well. But as Granny always sez, “Don’t you worry, hon, she may be runnin’ but she may be runnin’ with a hole in her bucket.” We-e-e-ll doggies, Granny was right!!! Mikie ended up catchin’ her on mile 13, cuz he got a big surge of energy just like a flea on a fat dog!

Now, Mikie, he is kinda modest (most of the time), but once he crossed that finish line he started squawkin’ like a two-pound chicken who’d just laid a three-pound egg. He seemed to be mighty proud of his 2:17:00 time, considerin' the conditions. Amy Lou came in just behind him. She had not really trained for this race much, so we Clampett’s was quite proud of her!!

By the way, Jethro, did not finish the race. He got a whif of a pretty girl carrin’ a bag of that striped candy you get in the store and he got his “scent” throd off. Come to think of it, I did not raise the sharpest pencil in the box. Fact is, Jethro is so stupid, if his brains were lard, they wouldn’t grease too big a pan, at all!

Next race for Mikie looks like it might be the Denver Marathon on October 14th. That seems to be awfully close to this race. Hope he does not over do it. One of these days I've got to have a long talk with that boy about settin’ goals. I think he has less smarts than Jethro!

P.S. The prayer list included more of our JA staff: Some of our aides, specials teachers, cafeteria manager and building engineer. Thirteen very special and loyal people who think Mikie has psychological problems.