- The management

Shortly after my senior season of College running the goal was to run a half marathon. After finding the Norfolk, NE Laugh & a Half marathon I realized I had 5 short weeks to up the mileage and work on some over distance training. I made it to the small, 1^st time, local event with high hopes of setting a decent half mark, plus there was money on the line, (1^st $200, 2^nd $100, and 3^rd $50).

The gun goes off, feeling fresh and sitting in 3^rd place after a quick first half mile I began to settle in and realize the competition isn’t all that deep ( roughly 400 runners). I can see the lead bike and everything is going smoothly, until we come to a “T” in the road, the biker turns right and stops we continue on down the, “what we thought was right path”. As we fly by a person in a wheel chair and a couple local stores we are quickly stopped by on officer, “ Are you all running the half, you were suppose to turn left at the intersection”.

Can you say “Clock Block” we were a half mile down the wrong road. Now we have to run a half mile back to just get on course total distance 1 full mile off course after the first mile of a half marathon. As we get back to the intersection where the biker stands it takes everything for a friend of mine to hold his tongue, the biker says sorry and my friend replies, “I don’t train my ass off for sorry”. Now we are currently bringing up the back off the bus swinging out wide to avoid the traffic of the slower runners and walkers all while explaining to others what went wrong.

Luckily the field was not too deep and after mile 9 the three of us made it back to our respected spots and won the prize money with an official time of 1:24:03 for a total distance of 14.5 miles. (The extra .4 miles was due to the fact of them not measuring the course incorrectly in the first place).

Lifted from my good friend David Seevers and his photos from Ironman WI.  Total clock block in the most dangerous way!  Did he not see the bikers or was he looking for the estate sale?

Carrie,

BASTARDS! They wouldn’t take clock blocking but they will do lunch blocking!?! This is just wrong…

Meghan

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Urban Dictionary <daily@urbandictionary.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 9:04 AM
Subject: lunch-blocking: Urban Word of the Day
To: Meghan

September 16: lunch-blocking

\ˈlənch-ˈbläkeng\ The act of preventing or postponing someone from going to lunch through actions such as scheduling meetings, asking questions, or starting discussions at or near lunch time for the target of the block.

Fred: Where were you? We missed you at lunch.
Bob: My boss scheduled a meeting from 11AM – 2PM today. I was totally lunch-blocked.
Fred: Yeah, my boss was totally lunch-blocking me all last week when he would pop-in to my office at 10:55 for a status report knowing I always go to lunch at 11AM!

During the race, a draw bridge was raised.  A clock blocking bridge?  Are kidding me?

Enjoy!

Running with lit candles, buckets of water, and clunky hand drills… The most fun a person can have in the course of 45 hours, right?

In all seriousness, a race called The Death Race leaves a lot of opportunity for clock blocking and this year’s race delivered.  The theme of the race was religion and I’m pretty sure God, Shiva, Elaha, Brahman, Vishnu all signed on for the event… to use a Christian metaphor… this race got BIBLICAL!  The skies opened up with rain throughout the entire race.  It was inspired to see so many push so far despite all the clock blocks… nice race Spartan!

The lack of my posts has contributed to clock blocking of sharing the clock blocking message and for that I am deeply apologetic.  I have run a few races since my last post and there was some pretty sick clock blocking happening.  Trail run clock blocks are probably the worst, especially on a single trail.  Walking through water stations is one thing that may actually do me in.  I mean, YES, please walk if you must, I don’t like choking on my water either but THE SUDDEN STOP in the middle of the road?  No thank you.

I did a trail run last week, that’s me and my team in the picture.  I’m not sure why I’m doing a deep lunge in this picture… but I felt moved in the moment and now it’s captured forever in film and I look like a jackass.  Clock blocking my own coolness and I wonder why I’m single?  I digress…  This race was The Lucky Bucket.  At mile three there was a beer stop.  That is a positive clock block.  Immediately following was a deep and treacherous ravine that I’m sure claimed some overzealous runners…

I also recently commented on the Clock Blocking FB page about my distaste for Vibrams.  It’s not that I don’t believe in their efficacy, it’s that I think they make people look like they have monkey feet and that’s kinda gross to me.

I was also clock blocked from using the bathroom on an airplane recently.  That was awesome.  He even called me out over the intercom.  ”Ma’am, the fasten seatbelt light is still illuminated, you’re going to need to take your seat.  Thanks.” He didn’t even get up from his chair.  LAZY clock blocking!

Those are the coherent ramblings I can manage today… here is a picture for your viewing pleasure.  The caption you ask?

“Evan trying to sneak a face pic between the dugout hole, I get clock blocked by a bat”

Confession: I’ve run bandit.  (That means you run an event you didn’t pay for)  Technically, once – it’s not a common habit as was implied.  I tried one other time to help a friend finish a race but it didn’t work out.  Neither time was it an intentional way to save money, I’ve never believed it to be cool, nor did I mean for my words to inspire a nation of bandit runners to come out of hiding, or screw the well-meaning paying customers of the race… but that really doesn’t matter…

What matters is that running bandit is a clock block.  For sure.  IT’S WRONG. 

In all seriousness, why is running bandit wrong?  Well, there are so many reasons. 

1. People spend a lot of time, money, and energy to put on a great event – when party crashing bandits show up that’s a clock block. 
2. Races are established with a safe number of runners, bandits can make that unsafe if they push that number above what’s planned for.  That’s a clock block. 
3. It’s morally just uncool.  Jesus wouldn’t have run bandit and neither should I.  It’s a clock block to heaven.
4. It’s not “RAD” as I previously appeared to imply.  It clock blocks your own success.  You don’t get an official finish time so your efforts aren’t captured. 

So to the running villagers rounding up pitchforks you can desist.  Your comments were taken, I am eating crow, owning up, and officially apologizing for the bandit running and the unwitting bandit advocating.  I’m sorry.

My promise: Heretofore I shall never run bandit again!  I mean that and now I know you’re watching! 

Rest assured,I’m not all clock block bandit bad guy all the time. In all fairness, I do have a few redeeming qualities… I give lots of high fives and hugs, I tip generously, and I swerve to avoid hitting small animals while driving.  That’s just three I can think of right now.  There might even be more. 

Lesson learned:  Truly, and all joking aside, running bandit isn’t right, it’s not cool (or rad), and it’s incredibly disrespectful.  It’s a pretty big clock block and we know clock blocking. 

Since the introduction of clock blocking, it’s taken on a life of it’s own and a marathon is a gold mine for clock blocks… the marathon itself, was the ultimate clock block first time around!  I mean, the Greek messenger Pheidippides DIED after he ran the 26.2.  I am going to guess that he wasn’t running with a Spibelt stuffed full of  EXTREME Sport Beans (“Extreme” is code for “they added caffeine”), Aleve, and lip balm like I will be, but regardless, the dude died.

And while we’re on the subject of Spibelts… I love mine.  In fact, I am sort of a geek about it… I realize it’s a miniature fanny pack and that it’s impossible to look super cool while sporting it, I mean, impossible, but if I can carry my car key, ID (for when I turn up broken on the side of the road and they need to know where to send me) my phone (so I can Tweet my splits and weave in and out of runners providing the epitome of clock blocks on the road), and my fuel so I’ll continue to rock it proudly.

But I digress…

I am sure that I’ll see all kinds of clock blocking tomorrow, and I’ll take it in stride, hurtle straight into someone or something because of it, and ultimately finish slower (be it by minutes or seconds) because of it.  I’m not all about the clock block though, I’ve got a back-up plan.  I plan on keeping myself busy making sure as many guys I can chase down are effectively “chicked” before lunch.  A few hundred or so should make me feel better.