Off the Press took a road trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania last weekend because we are big fans of The Office, Lackawanna County, and all other things northeast Pennsylvania. On Sunday, we went to the local high school where it seemed like a lot of people were lining up for the start of some kind of race. We had taken a coach bus to get there and it took like 40 minutes, but in a couple of interviews we had with people, it seemed like everyone intended to run all the way back to where the bus had come from. This was a crisis because it meant we were 26.2 miles away from where we started and there was no bus back. While most of our editors and reporters decided to see if there was an Uber or something, our head editor decided to stick around and see what was up. After all, it’s not like everyone was going to run all the way back, right?
At first, it seemed like a great idea—it was a little chilly, but they had cheerleaders at the start being all supportive, there were people handing out water bottles, and an astonishing number of porta potties for what seemed like around 500 people. Someone sang the national anthem and then everyone just started running. It didn’t seem like anyone was scared, in fact, everyone except our editor seemed to be expecting to just start running in a direction. I kept asking people where we were all going, but no one really seemed to want to talk.
After several miles of running, an excessive and unacceptable amount of running we would say, we came to some fans who seemed to be expecting us. This was truly unexpected as until then it had just been a horde of people running along a road where there should be cars, but because it was 8 a.m. on a Sunday there were none. More surprisingly, they were giving out cups of water and Gatorade. Everything seemed to be indicating that more running was to be expected and a sense of foreboding grew. Also, Gatorade totally went up my nose when I tried to drink it while running.
It became clear that the only way out was to keep going forward. As other people alongside me dropped to the ground, began crawling, and were carted off on stretchers, I persevered. Even after what felt like an injury to the hip flexor brought on by hyperlordosis. The Rocky theme began to play on an absurd amount of speakers from nearby houses, although some of those may have been imagined due to the state of delirium. The flaming chariots also may have been imagined now that I think about it.
After 3 hours, 19 minutes, and 57 seconds and to a standing ovation from hundreds of people I did not know, I crossed what could only be described as a trapezoidal pad with a clock above it that seemed to be the end of the event. Someone gave me a cool-looking medal with a train on it and other people got dangerously close to shoving mac and cheese directly into my face.
It was at this point I finally caught up with the writers who had come on the road trip with me.
“Dude we’ve been looking for you for 3 hours, 19 minutes, and 57 seconds, where were you?”
“You ran all the way back? It was like a 40 minute drive.”
“Are you gonna eat that slice of pizza?”
I think I need a new team of writers, but if this line makes it in, they were cool with me saying that.
Be First to Comment