"How Green Was My Bally?" or "Beyond the Bally of the (Lou) Rawls" (oh, that's just fucking ridiculous)

I may be a stupid American (a term that while watching the Torino Olympics seemed to become increasingly redundant,) but I do know coffee. And now I know bad coffee. I mean really bad coffee. Like, as in “make-you-cry-like-you-just-watched-Bambi-right-after-your-dog-got-hit-by-a-car-and-your-ice-cream-fell-on-the-ground” bad coffee.
A fellow java fanatic who had recently been to Ireland had warned me about the quality and treatment of the bean on the Emerald Isle. Though she is occasionally prone to hyperbole, I’ve found her assessment of the situation to have been grossly understated. To say this coffee was merely “bad” is to say Jimmy Buffet is “sort of crappy.” But why focus on the negative? I’m coming back from one of the most beautiful places on earth. “40 shades of green”? Try 10 times that. Nice people? You’d be hard pressed to find Buddhists on Ecstasy as smiling and helpful as the Irish. It’s really a bit frightening when you come from a region that makes prison look warm and congenial. Again, why focus on the negative? Pride mostly, which as I will explain, has been slightly reevaluated for me by the gentle hand of Eire.
Ireland. Incredible landscapes. Stunning, humbling history. Utterly bizarre and consistently unhealthy breakfasts. Terrible coffee.
By “terrible” I mean weak. Weaker than the argument for going to war in Iraq. Weaker than an anorexic midget after 5 hours of arm wrestling. It is what Coors Light is to Guinness. It is what Matchbox 20 is to Motorhead. Weak. Through its translucent, beige glow, you could read the bible without your glasses on. You could read the fine print on your cell phone contract (which one makes more sense to you? I’m torn myself.) During the trip, I took to augmenting the six to nine cups with which I would begin the day (I normally have two) with Red Bull. I would have gladly welcomed crystal methamphetamine into my routine were it not for the danger its production posed to the plumbing of the Long Quay Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast.
Speaking of breakfast, over the course of the last six days, I have ingested at least eleven different types of meat totaling 29 pounds. As a runner, I’d be concerned about my cholesterol were it not for the coffee acting as a blood thinner.
All week, I was focused on two things above all else: my friend’s wedding (as it was the true center of this trip) and the Ballycotton 10 Miler road race. My heart attack, which seemed inevitable, would most likely happen at the latter. Though I do get fairly emotional at weddings, I doubted that even a real tearjerker would get my pulse up into the 170 range. All week, as I inhaled round after round of what is known as “The Full Irish Breakfast,” I pictured my head blowing up somewhere around the six mile mark, its contents landing Jackson Pollock-like on the lush, green fields and unsuspecting sheep.
The Full Irish Breakfast consists of two or three “banger” sausages (picture breakfast links made of meat and overcooked oatmeal), two pieces of thick, fatty bacon, two eggs (scrambled or fried), white toast and two pieces of “pudding.” Now, this pudding is not the kind you’re going to see Bill Cosby happily hawking on TV to little kids. Nor is it the type of stuff you get in Germany, which is basically cooked, clotted blood. No this is the stuff hot dogs are made of, plus grains, plus blood. Yummy. And, as an added bonus, it allegedly acts as an aphrodisiac, according to our gap-toothed, lisping B&B owner. This last effect comes in handy, as no one is feeling particularly sexy after living on little more than Guinness and animal byproducts for a week. Oh yeah, they throw a half of a very small tomato on there for color, without which your plate would be a frightening sea of yellow and brown.
In the States I exist on a fairly healthy, all-natural diet. I don’t eat any processed foods, I keep my fat intake down and I don’t ingest any drugs whatsoever, excepting, of course, my beloved java and a bit of sugar here and there. Now like any self-involved, narcissistic American, I assume this plan makes me a healthier person. It makes me faster as a runner, better as a worker and maybe even makes be look a couple of years younger than 43 (which stinks because I’m only 35.)
With all this clean living, I’d managed to run a personal best of 56:14 for 10 miles, not Speedy Gonzales, but not exactly Slowpoke Rodriguez either.
So what did I do in the Ballycottton 10 Miler after straying about as far away from my usual ways as I can, in a field that included as the winner none other than the current Irish Cross Country Champion (Vinny Mulvey) and some of the country’s top runners? 54:44 and 14th place overall out of 2,811 finishers.
My head didn’t explode, I didn’t feel like I was carrying chunks of the Blarney Stone in my belly as I ran and I actually clocked a 5:19 final mile, uphill, out-sprinting one of Ireland’s top club runners down the stretch with a 26 second 200 meter kick.
So just what the hell do I do now? Make my coffee with a teaspoon of grounds and a gallon of water? Subscribe to the Jimmy Dean diet plan? Fry my Powerbars in pork fatback? Or just race only in Ireland? Maybe that last one wouldn’t be a bad idea. It turned my world upside down, shook it around, and set it upright again new and improved. Just goes to show that with all I know, I don’t know much. But I do know coffee.