The Ryan family has an old saying: If your nipples are bleeding, you’re doing it wrong. This saying doesn’t necessarily apply to any specific activity. It’s pretty good advice for every possible situation in life. Running marathons, shopping at the supermarket, sexual maneuvers with the wife, eating a pastrami sandwich, training a horse to use a toilet like a person. It’s just a general rule of existence that if your nipples are ever bleeding, you’re likely doing SOMETHING wrong.

Another Ryan family creed: If one of your toenails falls off, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. You wouldn’t think a normal person would need this piece of advice. For most of us, it’s common sense that if one of our toenails turns black and falls off, and we know what caused it to do that, we probably wouldn’t do that thing anymore. People who don’t follow this rule are usually found in asylums that don’t let residents use scissors.

Yet another common sense rule: If you’re sober and urinating on someone’s lawn, you’re not only doing it wrong, you’re also way too far from the bar. Many people would argue that if you’re urinating in someone’s yard at all—sober or otherwise—you’re doing it wrong, but I’m not made of stone. I understand that there are exceptions. I peed on a church once. It was an accident. I didn’t realize it was a church until I walked around to the front. It was one of those low-rent Armenian churches located in a strip mall. I feel like Jesus wouldn’t care as much about me peeing on those as he would if I did it in Italy. Regardless, this isn’t about ME. This article is about YOU.

You have mental problems, reader. I know this because if you’re in Duluth this weekend and have braved the crowds long enough to grab this newspaper, then you’re likely a runner in Grandma’s Marathon. Ergo, a crazy person who has likely broken all of the rules listed above.

What’s that? You’re not crazy? Let’s check the list. Giant blisters on your feet that make it difficult to walk for days afterward? Everybody has that, right? Occasional stress fractures in your bones that cause them to nearly shatter? Seems like a typical occurrence. Massive diarrhea that forces you to drop trou in a stranger’s yard, “decorate” their bushes with it, and then jump back into the race without wiping? All of this with 60 spectators watching you? No, that’s totally normal. You’re not weird or deranged at all.

Blisters, injuries, and diarrhea are all examples of your body sending you a not-so-subtle message that what you’re doing is stupid, and that you should stop. Marathoners will never stop, of course. Unlike vegetarianism, running isn’t just a fad they learned from some reality show actress. Marathoners have spent decades honing their addiction to running. It’s a part of them, like the creature that pops out of that guy’s stomach in the movie “Alien.” Except instead of popping out of their stomach and ending their life, a marathon runner’s little monster stays inside and forces them to go jogging. It’s one of the cruelest afflictions I’ve ever seen. It’s like being addicted to cleaning toilets or doing your taxes.

Is it worth it? After Pheidippides ran the original marathon back in 490 BC, he collapsed and died. If he could see all of you now, paying tribute to him by embarking on the same treacherous journey, he’d probably be filled with pride until he saw what your feet look like. Then he’d get creeped out and go drinking with the rest of us.

He might also feel misunderstood. If you know your mythology, you know he didn’t die because he ran 26 miles, but because he ran that plus 150 miles over the previous two days. So Grandma’s Marathon should technically be 176 miles. You want to be a true winner, don’t you? What’s the little monster inside of you saying? I think we both know it’s telling you to run 176 miles.

Don’t do it! This is your chance to break free. Instead of running a marathon this weekend, go drinking and eat deep-fried mashed potato balls from a gas station in Superior, WI, with the rest of us.
I was once like you. Every morning I’d wake up and do twenty push-ups. Twenty of them! But three days after starting this brutally challenging regimen, I saw the light and slept in instead. I found that I received a much larger sense of accomplishment from being a lazy degenerate than I ever did from working out. I feel more rested now, and the 47 minutes I used to spend each day doing 20 push-ups has left me with more time for watching TV.
Join us, marathon runners! There’s always a spot for you at the NORMAL table. You don’t want to run 26 miles. Pheidippides didn’t want to run 26 miles. Your body thinks you’re stupid for running 26 miles. Join us at the bar, stupid!

One of us, one of us, one of us…