Idiotarod

My mother was in town this last weekend, and it makes you realize just how old you're getting when she has more energy - and is in better shape - than you are. We spent all day Saturday walking around (tried to get matinee tickets for a show, and ended up getting tickets for 8 pm....so we killed 9 hours walking: over the Brooklyn Bridge, all around Dumbo, and through Soho). Not only did I go to bed before my mother, but I'm sad to say that the next day - literally - my hips hurt. How is that possible? I'm only now recovering, 5 days later!

The most amazing thing, though, was something we stumbled across called the idiotorod on Dumbo. Made up of teams of 5 or more, people in costumes were pulling shopping carts. Teams met in Dumbo near the water before starting their journey over the Manhattan Bridge. We actually thought it was a demonstration, heard police cars, and were wandering over to take a look before I saw three women in identical pink wigs and realized something was not quite right.

Among the teams (I'm killing myself that I didn't bring my camera), people were dressed as:

- bananas
- wonder women
- rats with giant genitals
- santa clauses
- doctors
- nurses

and people were dressed in (I couldn't identify a specific costume):

- blue spandex
- underwear over clear plastic suits
- red outfits that said COBRA (GI Joe?)

....among many others. One of the funniest things was the degrees of fitness represented: from the super-fit who were charging along to those who were FAR from fit (and in many cases chugging a beer while they ran). Amazing. So something that would be fun to do next year. And I would certainly be in the latter category of runners.