Could You Do It? I Know I Could Not.

Here is the song to play while reading this weeks entry:

The Essential Stuff:

Tonight is normal place and time.

BUT, next week is the Chase Corporate Challenge which means we get kicked out of our park.  Well, many of us usually are able to take part in the Challenge so are there anyway.  It really caught me off guard this week because I was naively thinking it was a week later.    

Last year, a few of us started a new tradition.  If you can get to the normal starting spot by 5, it is still possible to run in the park.  (All the Challenge people have taken over the parking lots, and car parkway area, so very few go beyond the bathroom building into the park itself.  The issue is fighting closed roads, increased Liverpool traffic and sparse parking.)  So, if you can get there "early", on-street parking will still be available in Liverpool and then we will do a small group run into the park.  After that (the Challenge starts at 6:25), we will venture out onto the course for the Challenge and form a cheering squad - probably just down from the Butterfly garden area.  Last year we were a festive bunch and had fun cheering on people and companies for a while.  Since the Challenge is such a crappy run in and of itself, I like to think that a Cowbell Crew helps a lot.  It actually makes for a fun night as afterwards we can mingle in and around the company tents with TRYers in and sometimes are able to look pathetic enough that we get some free scraps.  If you want to do the 5 o'clock "early" TRY next week, please let me know as I will coordinate with you so we do not take off if you are fighting traffic and parking but only a couple minutes behind sort of thing.

There has been a slight change for this Saturday mornings Joe LaGuardia event.  They have such a good turnout of volunteers that Joe's daughter has told me not to bother, but instead to just register and run in the race itself.  (And that would be the biggest help to her.)  So, that is what I'm going to do now.  I hope a couple of you are able to do that as well.  (Rumor has it that there may be a running stroller showdown in the race.  Which reminds me - all your mothers and fathers out there - strollers are welcome - so bring em out and have some fun.  Obviously I've trained with a stroller, but have not done a race with one...so will be interesting to see what pace I could do.)

From here on out, it's all about Paige's Butterfly Run:

Thanks to everyone who donated, participated, helped out with, or ran with the TRY groups on Saturday morning.  Some early photos have been all over Facebook so I am not going to repeat many here.  Once the event photographers and our own photographer get to them, there will be a ton this year that will get put into Facebook albums.  Hopefully everyone who was there for the first time enjoyed themselves and also realized what a special event this is and also noticed that our Centipede teams hold a certain place of honor around the event.  This all happened by accident, but now that the two-way bond is there, it is something that I do not take lightly.  (One of those, "with great power, comes great responsibility" things.)  So, yeah, obviously we could wear more comfortable outfits or could have less flair to go along with our costumes, but why run without wings, and flowers, and pitchforks, when adding all those extra things puts us over the top?  (And seemingly has made the Post Standard and Syracuse.com fall in love with us.  Or at least our women.)

I believe I was able to introduce almost everyone to either Chris or Ellen (or both).  But did you take the time to think about what they've done?  Like, REALLY think about it?  Their story is on their site, but it goes deeper than that.  I honestly do not know (you have to have a certain personality) how they do this.  I understand how they are honoring their daughter and how amazing that side of it is, but it also means that each year they have to harp on the fact that she is gone.  They watch all these other people grow up around them while Paige's face on that pretty banner always stays the same age.  Our very own Escalade was destined to overlap with Paige in the Baldwinsville school district but Paige never made it.  Knowing Escalade like we do, there is every chance they would have been good friends.  So, how does Chris handle seeing Escalade and her father crossing the finish line knowing that simple act was denied to him and his Paige?  I love what they've done and how they've turned personal tragedy into a local legendary success story...but I couldn't do it if it had been me.  Could you?  (They have a daughter that was a few years younger than Paige - so may not even have a memory of her - or very simple ones?  How much of her life was spent watching and helping her parents do this in memory of an older sister she never got to know?  Doesn't that put the surviving daughter in a really awkward position?  She's the one who lived, but gets put on the back burner for days and weeks at a time while they spend all this time honoring Paige.)  It hits really deep if you take some time to think about it.  Which I have.  And that is why as long as there is a TRY I plan to be over the top in our support of Paige's Butterfly Run.  Thank you for making that possible again this year.  Chris flattered me by mentioning my name as we went up to get the trophy this year, but this team goes well beyond me.  And these five years of Centipede fun would not be at all possible without you.  :-)

Here is John from 2014, doing a very simple thing that Chris never got to do with Paige.  Her finish line came way too early.

This last point is completely off topic.  So, stop reading now if you want to salvage any bit of respect for me: Meat Loaf - or other "cards against humanity" players, I need a ruling.  Look at this photo that made the paper online:

Is Berms giving us the legendary "tasteful sideboob" that the game refers to?  The Urban Dictionary definition does a criminally poor job describing it and leaves still uncertain?  Is it a boob seen from the side profile?  (Like our current example.)  Or does it have to be bare to the point that you see underboob, like with a fancy dress a celebrity would wear, or something you see in a PG movie where they don't want to show frontal so they flash a side?  Please help!  (I love the phrase but do not know how to correctly apply it and this photo was a serendipitous way for me to find out.)