Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days.  I have a valid excuse though, I got a big boy job!


So, you want to know how to run a marathon, huh?  You've been running at least 5 miles a day EVERYDAY for the past few months and you think you are ready to take on something that most people can't even imagine doing!?!

Good for you, have a cookie!

Seriously.

You need carbs.  Eat a cookie right now!

Everyone else, if you are curious about how to prepare for a marathon I suggest checking with sites made by professional runners or physical therapists, because trying to run this far without conditioning your body and mind for it can be quite damaging.  (Also, because I'm an idiot and I built up to this point over years of adding more distance and reading random articles on running.)

The night before running a marathon it is absotively posolutely imperative to your survival that you eat lots of carbs and drink lots of water.  Carbs are energy, which you will need a lot of once you start going the next day.  Organic cheese pizza is the perfect food for vegetarian marathon runners to eat the night before a long run.  Cheese is loaded with protein, and sauce (white or red) is delicious and has some vitamins, and the crust is delicious carbs.  If you want to go hardcore-awesome, top that bad boy off with some noodles and you will be in carbohydrate heaven!


I'm not being immature (well maybe I am a little bit), but you are going to piss like a mo-fo.  Just sit your candy ass down on the toilet while eating and chugging water because you will be going peeing so much that your piss would count a purified water.

Feels goooooood, man.

Next, you freaking DIE!!!

Close enough anyway, a food coma will hit right around the time your pee-hole starts to go numb from all the pissing.  This won't be the best sleep ever, but a food coma is a pretty deep sleep...which makes it fantastic for being well rested for the running!

YAAAAAY SLEEP!!!


Once you emerge from your food coma, you will have to poop really badly.  But that's too bad for you because you need to eat some motha-freakin' oatmeal, cousin!

Oatmeal is great for a last meal, it is small and gives long lasting energy without making you feel bloated and slow.

Also, drink more water.

Now that all those carbs are digested and you are well hydrated, it is time to get pissed off!

[sqwee!  This is the fun part!]


Think of the worst possible things your mind can come up with.  Things that really infuriate you.  (Here's a few to get you started since sinister thoughts aren't something normal people think about too often.  ...though, you are reading my blog and that makes you suspicious already.  O___O)

• A loved one being killed and the murderer getting away with it!
• Everyone you know and loved is being raped, tortured and slowly/mercilessly killed right now and there is nothing you can do about it!  (Except run really far and really fast!)
• Heat seeking missiles are flying directly at you and everyone you care about!  You have to outrun them to save everybody!
• Puppies are being set on fire and kittens are being microwaved!  
• There's no toilet paper left in the whole restroom and nobody bothered to re-fill it and now you are stuck with a nasty ass and your cellphone is dead! 

Anger helps psyche you up and get you focused.  Maybe you can prevent all those things from happening if you run fast enough?  (Maybe a magical cupcake will appear on my desk while I go get my headphones from downstairs...who knows?)


Angry music might not necessarily be your favorite music, but it keeps the adrenaline pumping.  I don't necessarily like angry music, but certain sounds, rhythms and lyrics really freak me out and tap my adrenaline.

I highly recommend the following bands (and these songs in particular) for running any distance:

• Incubus - A Certain Shade of Green
• Finch - Insomniac Meat
• Rage Against The Machine - Killing in the name of (Bonus points of awesomeness if you scream along with the entire song in public with complete sincerity and gusto.)
• The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid
• My Chemical Romance - Destroya (Bonus points of awesomeness if you scream "You don't believe in God!  I don't believe in luck!  They don't believe in us!  But I believe in the enemy!" while sprinting as fast as you can.)
• From Autumn to Ashes - The After Dinner Payback
• Linkin Park - Given Up
• Marilyn Manson - The Fight Song
• Mindless Self Indulgence - Bring The Pain (Method Man Cover)
• Flyleaf - Perfect
• Maximum the Hormone - What's Up, People?
• Rammstein - Mein Teil
• Seether - F*ck It
• Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

I also recommend thinking about zombies.  A lot.

This is an experimental musical blog-comic.  Yes, I am taking my three favorite forms of Web 2.0 entertainment and combining them into one mind blowing experience.  (Hopefully)

Turn your sound up, and click the link here and let the music video play while you read.  The song is "Halo" by Porcupine Tree, one of my favorite bands of all time.  The idea for this musical blog-comic came to me while running, thinking about where I want to go in life, and listening to this song.

I hope you enjoy it.


Some people have mood swings, and I kind of envy them because I get lifestyle-swings.

One day I will be an ultra charitable vegan, motivated by an insatiable desire to make the world a better place and to make myself a better person.  The only money I will spend is on other people and every action I take is thoroughly analyzed for ethical integrity. 

The next day I will want to be mindlessly self-indulgent with an endless appetite for instant gratification.  I will only spend money on stuff I don't really need just because I think having it will make me happy...and I won't do any background checks to see if it's fair-trade, environmentally friendly or anything of that nature!  (Gasp!)

During the transitional period between these phases I will find myself heinously conflicted about my goals in life, and to some degree who I am as a person.



I know that deep down inside of me that fat and angry teenager still exists, and boy does he want to kick my ass for being such an insufferable perfectionist.

This is about the time that I will drive 40 miles to the nearest shopping mall and buy crap I don't really need.  Novelty hats, fart machines, gourmet snack food...pretty much whatever looks awesome, feels good or tastes amazing gets brought home and marveled over it for a few hours.

Things seem pretty awesome at this point.  With my belly full of over priced treats and fresh kicks on my feet, I will strut around with more self-content than Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray" and Kanye West combined.

It is good to be bad...sometimes.


This phase will last a week at most, and only be borderline obscene for about an afternoon.

Then the guilt sets in and I become aware of how insufferably shallow I've been lately.

I'll start to think about how the cash I spent should have been used to buy food for the animal shelter, or how my energy should be spent on charity and not on working out or running just so I can look good.

I'll get paranoid about karma (and I don't really subscribe to that belief, though I sometimes suspect there is truth to it).  I'll scrub the floors to make even for strutting my shit all over the house.  I'll pick up trash along the roads while running to put those nice new kicks to good use.  ...Then I will stare at the Peace Corp. website and contemplate doing it until I realize that means no internet and lots spiders and/or snakes.

I don't care how good I want to be (or can be), poisonous snakes and gigantic spiders are where I draw the line.


 When I'm in full-blown saint mode, I very nearly shit rainbows and radiate sunshine...but after a while this behavior starts to annoy even myself.

Then I start to shift back to being a bit more self-centered.


As I start to transition back to being increasingly focused on myself, I start kicking myself in the face and brooding over how utterly pathetic it is that I can't just stick to one lifestyle.

Does it always have to be one extreme or the other?  Can't I buy myself something stupid (yet cool) and do something nice for others for no reason?

Can't I run for charity and write an obscenely detailed blog that focuses mostly on myself?

...Shit.  [Cycle of shame]