Tomorrow, Sunday, is the annual Twin Cities Marathon --- 52 and sunny is the forecast ---- 8 a.m. start, (SFX RUNNING FEET, BREATHING) from downtown Minneapolis around the lakes, Lake of the Isles, Calhoun, Harriet and Nokomis and across the river to St. Paul and up Summit Avenue to the State Capitol where you will receive a can of beer at the finish line.
If you are not running, it's okay. There are reasons not to. It's hard on your feet. If you weigh 175 pounds, every step you run, your feet hit the pavement with a force of 700 pounds, (SFX) and do it 15,000 times. There is gastrointestinal distress (SFX) and back pain. Your body is flooded with stress hormones (SFX), and for about 24 hours after a race, you have high levels of coagulation markers in your blood, which are associated with heart attacks, (SFX) and your blood pressure goes up. (SFX) and men may have bleeding nipples. (CRY OF HORROR) Your right ventricle may not work so well. Men in their 40s and 50s are most susceptible. (SFX) It is terribly hard on your knee cartilage (SFX) and it's been linked to osteoarthritis, degeneration, microfractures, softening of the kneecap, inflammation of the iliotibial ligament, Achilles tendinitis and perhaps the ripping of a tendon. (SFX)
Father, don't run in the marathon
Stay home and take a nice nap
You're fifty years old and your legs are half gone
And your tendons are likely to snap.
Or you could stop cause you need to go potty
And be knocked down by mistake
And ten-thousand runners run over your body
And pound you into a pancake.
Stay home! stay home! stay home! --
Please, father, dear father, stay home. -
Father, don't run in the marathon race
Your family is pleading with you.
You're likely to need your right hip replaced
And maybe a couple knees too.
You'd need six weeks of convalescence
Need to be fed, bathed, and dressed,
And we are busy with our adolescence
And frankly, dad, you'd be a pest.
Stay home! stay home! stay home! --
Please, father, dear father, stay home. --
Father, don't try to run 26 miles!
You're likely to injure your back,
Or come home trembling, weeping, senile,
The effects of a big heart attack.
And six hours later, homeward you'd walk
With the lame and the half and the cripples
And imagine how the neighbors would talk
If they looked and saw your bleeding nipples.
Stay home, stay home, stay home,
Please Father dear Father stay home.