Where Things Started

Me: So I think I'm gonna run the LA marathon.

Friend Who Runs Marathons: Awesome!!! When's the race??

Me: March 21st.

Friend Who Runs Marathons: Okay, cool, you still have time. Have you started training??

Me: No.

Friend Who Runs Marathons: How often do you run??

Me: I haven't ran for at least two months now.

Friend Who Runs Marathons: Okay...

Me: ...

Friend Who Runs Marathons: You'll be fine! So what made you decide to run a marathon? The Biggest Loser or something?

Me:

Friend Who Runs Marathons: Oh.

Or something like that.

So then I recruited my friend, Alex, to join me in this sad attempt at a marathon. We used to run in the morning in college together with a third guy, Kevin. Nothing serious. We usually ran about two and a half miles, followed by some stair-climbing and lap-swimming, but once in a while, we'd have to resort to these. It wasn't pretty then, and it isn't pretty now.

In any case, we've committed to this ridiculous idea of pulling off a marathon. We've also decided to run for a cause or two. I'm running for a non-profit organization that addresses a cause that I'm really passionate about: human rights in North Korea. It's called:

I'll talk about this organization more from time to time, but for now, check out their page at www.linkglobal.org.

I'll let Alex pitch what he's running for, but it has something to do with variations of this:

So that's where things started.