Soon after I posted about that, I received a tweet from the mouse himself! Yes, that's right, in between crushing competitors on the bike, and running a newspaper, Geronimo is on twitter. Well, at least a fan of his is.
Regardless, this tweet directed me to this book, The Mouse Island Marathon. Not only is Geronimo a beast on the bike, but he's got a big engine on the run as well. I'm not sure if he swims well but I see Kona in his future.
As fast as my fingers could fly, I waved them around and my wife went and paid an extortionate amount of money to have this book shipped to us, and while she was at it, bought a whole lot of other books as well. Like The Time Crunched Cyclist, but that's another post.
If you want to scare your kids off of running a marathon, this is it. This epic journey puts Geronimo in harms way so many times you'll wonder why Mouse Island doesn't declare a national state of emergency.
The book starts out similarly to the RAAM book. A reluctant sign up, and a training regime that sounds about as fun as being water-boarded by the CIA. But Geronimo responds well and is fit as a fiddle by the start of the race.
I won't give it away, but Geronimo hits on a few girls, saves several lives, goes off course multiple times, meets a few really strange people, including a guy who is hoping Geronimo will die, gets dropped by the entire field, and still manages to pound out a pace at the end that would make Haile Gebrselassie look like he was an overweight Republican. The ending is predictable but at the same time probably the strangest marathon finish since Godzilla beat Mothra at Boston.
All in all, the kids loved this book. And they were kept enthralled throughout the 45 minutes it took me to read it to them. That's what's important.
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