Mon, 30 Jan 2006

Once again the hash came to the rescue, with a beer stop at the Miami Marathon.
We arrived at Stop and Tuna's house at 7:00 am, to find hashers hard at work filling beer coolers. AI was reconstructing the hash sign, complete with giant beer mug and on-on feet. ChewToy and I slipped away about 7:20 and walked down to the course to see the leaders come through.

Eventually we got organized and hauled everything down to our planned beer stop at mile 22. We got set up and waited for the racers. While we waited, an irate civilian lady came out of this house and asked us what we were doing, and could we be quieter. Minator explained that there were 16,000 runners in the marathon, and that it was going to get louder before it got quieter. He was very nice and kept calling her ma'm, which discomfitted her.

Finally the runners began coming by. We knew the leaders wouldn't stop for a beer, but we were watching for the first runner who would. Minator was out there trying hard, but they just kept going by. We had the sign set up and everything, but the runners went on past to the water stop just past us.

And they still kept coming. See the guy with the one bloody nipple? He woldn't stop. And the woman who was really laboring along wouldn't stop. Finally we saw our first customer in a group of runners. He saw the sign, he saw Minator, and he lunged for the beer. You can see him approacing in the third photo (annotated), and happily leaving with his beer in the fourth one.

We kept passing out beers. All told we went through five cases (thanks Stop!). We gave beer to a guy on a bike who had run the half, and to more runners. Anal kept pouring, and Minator stood out in the road. Unlike the Palm Beach Marathon, we found that we had to keep yelling "Cerveza!" for our South American friends. I guess when you've run that far, and you don't speak English, even the giant beer mug and the gringos yelling "Beer!" won't tip you off.

The runners kept coming by. One of the wheelchair racers stopped. He had already passed us, but once he realized what we were offering he spun around and came back. Gator had to help him hold the beer in his gloves. The wheelchair racer was from England, and said that he had done over 100 marathons and finished last or nearly so in everyone. The he held up the beer and said, "Now you see why!". Then he rolled off to do the last four miles by hand.

I handed this guy a beer, and he just sat down beside me. Pretty soon he felt better, finished the beer, and got going again. Then Itsy showed up after running the half. He was complaining about something, but he was doing it in that voice that only dogs can hear, so it wasn't too bad.

Virgin D came by, but I didn't get any pictures. The big D pounded the small cup of beer that we gave him, then demanded a full big cup of beer, and set off to finish the r*ce, carrying his beer.

Finally, at 10:30 am, four and a half hours after the start, we ran out of beer. We had passed out (most of) five cases. As we were breaking everything down, a girl who lived across the street with the unhappy woman showed up. Her father had already come out to complain, but I was in the port-o-let, so I didn't have to hear it. The girl wasn't too upset, and in fact it turned out that she had done a bike hash several years ago. "It wasn't very safe," she said. We told her that hashing probably wasn't for her. We got rid of her, hauled everything back to the house, and started getting ready for the bike hash.

posted at: 23:43 | permalink |