Last night Team Fatty NYC ate at Ralphs, an Italian place. The highlights of the evening were:
1. Checking out the awesome Team Fatty shirts PI provided.
2. Talking with other cyclists about how much running hurts.
3. Complaining about how few raviolis we were served. WE’RE RUNNING A MARATHON. Feed us that way!
We took the R to the ferry. The Ferry to Staten island. And now we’re on a shuttle bus to the starting corrals.
And all along the way, we have had no trouble getting seats. The Mo, my raised eyebrow stinkeye, and a black cap make me look like a very dangerous man indeed.
A Note from Fatty: I am in the middle of week two of an incredibly intense two weeks at work, so please do me a favor and forgive the infrequency and shortness and general phoned-it-in-ness of what I have been writing. My life will be back to normal next week, and I’ll be back to writing in great detail about things that haven’t actually happened again. Really.
Tomorrow — Thursday — is the premier of the Race Across the Sky documentary — the movie that details the 2010 Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race.
I have previously mentioned that I was interviewed when this movie was filmed. At the time, I did not know how much of that interview was going to make it into the final cut.
Well, since then I’ve learned something amazing: my entire interview — all 90 minutes of it — is going to be in the movie. In its entirety. Uncut.
Okay, that may not be precisely true. However, I have learned that I will get more than the 2.2 seconds of film time I secretly (OK, not so secretly) expected I’d get.
Now, there’s a decent chance that this film will be playing at a theatre near you. So I hope you’ll go see the movie tomorrow (Click here to buy tickets). Because then if I’ve made a horrible fool of myself (a near certainty), I’ll at least be able to comfort myself with the knowledge that everyone who reads this blog will have had a good laugh at my expense.
Which is really one of the major reasons this blog exists, I guess, so I’m cool with that.
Of course, not everyone will be able to go see this movie. Fortunately for you, the people who made the movie sent me a photo — they called it a “production still,” but it looks like a photo to me — of me they took during my interview. Check me out:
The question you undoubtedly have — and I confess to having the selfsame question — is, “Can Fatty possibly hold his stomach in like that for a full 45-minutes-long interview?”
I guess we’ll find out.
Now, to get the full experience of what I was like during this interview, just imagine me standing there for forty five minutes, fidgeting and trying to answer questions, then starting to ramble and losing my train of thought, but continuing to talk anyway.
You know, pretty much the same experience you get with this blog anyway, but more multimedia-y.
My Anticipated Film Experience
I’ll be going to the 6:30PM showing of the movie at the Cinemark University Mall theatre in Orem, UT. I’ll have my Mom, her husband, The Runner, and six children in tow. So we’ll probably fill up half the house ourselves.
Still, if If you’re local, you should join me.
Once there, I expect to be unable to participate in any kind of conversation, since I’ll be trying my hardest to remember whether I insulted anyone in the audience, not to mention whether I used any bad language on camera.
Once the film begins, I will clench my jaw and sit rigidly until I come on screen. At which point I will stare in awe at huge I am when projected onto aforementioned screen, not to mention how effectively every imperfection I have is exquisitely magnified.
I will then marvel at how huge my nostrils are.
Once I have seen and heard myself, I hope to be able to stop worrying about it and just enjoy the movie. But honestly, I know that won’t happen. I’ll fret and mentally edit everything I say, and will probably smack myself mentally (maybe physically too) over how I forgot to include the most important thing in my response to any given question.
After the movie I will sit low in my chair until everyone leaves, and then I will go to my car and change into a non-soaked-with-sweat shirt.
PS: The trailer for the movie is good enough that I don’t mind embedding it here again.
Oh my. The year is almost over. With Halloween behind us (I went as a balding, paunchy middle-aged man), we suddenly find ourselves in . . . November Movember.
Yes, that’s right. Movember. The month where men all over the world grow a moustache (or “mo” as Australian youngsters call them, I guess), in the hopes that the following conversation will occur, several times over:
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Um, you seem to be growing a moustache.
You: Why, yes. Yes I am. Thank you for noticing.
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Honestly, I was trying my utmost to not notice, but I couldn’t help it. Honestly, it is the single most awful thing you could have done to your face.
You: I agree! I look both dangerous and ridiculous! My family has ceased acknowledging me, my friends will no longer ride with me, and my boss has changed my job so that I no longer meet with customers!
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Why are you growing a moustache, then?
You: Because it’s Movember — the month formerly known as November. During this month, I adorn my ordinarily handsome face with ridiculous facial hair, for the purpose of engaging curious-yet-wary acquaintances such as yourself in a conversation such as the one we are having! And now that I’ve drawn you in with my hideous appearance, I would now like to tell you that I — along with the rest of Team Fatty — am also trying to raise awareness and money for the Movember Foundation, which in turn is funding the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LiveStrong. These are all good foundations doing important work. And I am doing my part by neglecting to shave certain parts of my face for a month.
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Wouldn’t it be simpler to just wear a ribbon or a wristband or something?
You: Yes it would. But it would be so much less humiliating and hairy. And when’s the last time you asked someone about their ribbon or wristband?
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: 2004.
You: So, are you going to join Team Fatty and grow a moustache, thereby not only making yourself look like an out-of-work porn star?
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Yes I am, because your case is compelling. What do I do?
You: Well, go to http://us.movember.com/mospace/700960/ to join Team Fatty. Or to donate. Either way is just fine.
Curious, yet wary acquaintance: Thank you. I will do both at my earliest opportunity. And now please excuse me while I avoid looking at your face for the rest of the month.
Getting Ready to Run
To the right, you will see my current Mo status.
I confess that I started my Mo last Thursday — October 28 — which is a couple of days early. I did this for two very good reasons:
I fully expect my Mo to give me that extra little something — the thing that helps me keep running when all I want to do is walk. I mean, think about it. With a moustache like this, I kinda need to keep moving, wouldn’t you think?
By the way, I am happy to announce that I have been working on my drawl, and it is coming along nicely. By this Saturday, it should sound every bit as authentically western as my Tallahassee-inspired Mo looks.
Team Fatty Will Look Very Very in NYC
In the coming days, I will detail my plans — and my fears — for the NYC Marathon, but for right now, I’d just like to point out that Team Fatty NYC has been incredibly well taken-care-of by our friends at Pearl Izumi.
For one thing, we’ve been given custom running shirts (front design on the left; back design on the right):
Men’s colors are black and orange, Women’s colors are black and pink.
Here’s a closeup of the front:
But Pearl Izumi didn’t just set us up with great running shirts. No indeed. We each — all 16 of us — also got two pair of Pearl Izumi running shorts, two pair of high-end Pearl Izumi running socks (I love the way the socks are left/right specific — never have socks been so comfortable), short- and long-sleeved tech running shirts, and Pearl Izumi running shoes.
Swagtastic. Thanks tons, PI. You guys rock.
And — if I may — I’d like to say that I love these shoes. I have not been training the way I should (I’ll explain soon), but the right knee pain and left hip pain I’ve been suffering with have gone way down since I’ve switched to these shoes. I’m sticking with them from now on.
So. Everyone’s coming to cheer us on, right?
A Note from Fatty: Several of you have emailed, asking if there will be a Team Fatty for Movember. The answer is a definite Yes. So guys, get a good shave on Halloween and then plan on growing your mustache beginning on November 1. I’ll have more to say on this Monday.
Another Note from Fatty: Today’s guest post comes from Philly Jen, the Team Fatty Philly Co-Captain.
Yes, Ma’am-o-gram
Earlier this month, just when I began to taper for my first-ever marathon, a routine annual mammogram revealed the presence of a tumor in my right breast.
Lucky me.
Here on Team Fatty, we talk a lot about fighting cancer. Sometimes that fight is inspiring and glorious — but sometimes it’s mundane, unglamorous, even a little annoying.
Let’s be honest, getting regular screening mammograms once you reach a certain age isn’t sexy.
But it also isn’t torture, even if they do make you wipe off any anti-perspirant and perfume that you might be wearing into the exam room. It’s more like having a private yoga tutorial (lift your shoulder, reposition your elbow, rotate your ribcage ever-so-slightly more) with a rigorous, dedicated instructor who has your best interests at heart.
Think of it this way: every time you climb into a mammogram machine, you’re striking a warrior pose in the fight against cancer.
Early detection is one of the most powerful weapons that we have in that fight. But early detection doesn’t fall out of the sky. There’s no Cancer Fairy who leaves a note on your pillow saying, “Now would be a good time to go see your doctor.”
What we do have are tools that permit us to detect potentially deadly changes in our bodies, long before they manifest themselves through physical discomfort and illness.
Take my tumor (please). Initial tests indicate that it is probably an unusual and rare growth known as a phyllodes tumor. While not an adenocarcinoma, and while frequently benign, phyllodes tumors can undergo stunningly rapid growth and malignant ones can also metastasize. The medical literature documents tumors the size of eggs, oranges, grapefruits. As far as I’m concerned, permitting this thing to couch-surf inside me is simply not an option.
Thanks to early detection, I’m glad to report that my tumor is small, almost anticlimactically so. It’s about the size of a soybean, or a peanut.
Given its location and size, it can’t even be palpated, or detected by touch. And I’m in good health, running twenty miles at a time as part of my marathon training and zipping through a recent annual physical with flying colors.
Which means the only way we knew that the tumor even existed this early in the game — the sole reason I got a headstart against the eggs and oranges and the rest of the produce aisle, not to mention the possible mets — was because of a routine mammogram.
Now if that makes me a poster girl, I’ll take it, as long as it’s this gem by Jawbone Radio’s Len Peralta (with soundtrack by Jonathan Coulton):
So please, people, if you’ve been putting off cancer screening — mammograms, Pap smears, colonoscopies, PSA tests, getting skin changes examined, and so on — you can be your own hero. Take advantage of these tools to help spot cancer when it’s most treatable, because that’s also an important part of how Team Fatty carries on the fight.
Do it for all the people who love you, cherish you, and rely on you. Do it to honor those who didn’t have the health opportunities that you do, and who paid far too dearly because of it. Do it because we need you with us.
Remember, we don’t take up the fight because it’s easy. We fight because we can.
This Sunday, after three truly rotten weeks, I’m going to run 26.2 miles in northern Virginia and Washington, DC. After I return home to Philadelphia, I will undergo a lumpectomy. And then I’m looking forward to cake, ice cream, and the rest of my amazing, wonderful life.
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