When we started Marathon & Beyond six years ago, we didn’t want it to be all heavyweight training and racing information. So we turned to one of our favorite running humorists, Tim Martin, who, like a fabled spirit, hangs out in the vast redwood forests of far-northern California. We like to think of him as a cross between a character from The Hobbit and a hardy old-fashioned journalist going off to report on what’s happening that’s slightly skewed. “Man bites dog? Yessiree, chief! I’ll get on it right away.”

Tim was in the midst of being named the Road Runners Club of America’s “club writer of the year.” He was also in the process of compiling a stack of his short humorous pieces toward his first book, published a couple of years ago by Marathon Publishing under the apt title of There’s Nothing Funny About Running. Right.

No slouch to his avocation, Tim has run more than 50 marathons and is a winner of the Russian River Marathon. He’s been working on a new batch of pieces while also churning out scripts for his agent in Tinseltown. When he was out on a long run, we sneaked into his remote woodland cabin and were appalled to find that he writes on a—horrors!—computer. (We’d been expecting quills and a bottle of organic ink and hemp writing paper.) We printed off the following three examples of Tim’s humorous running writing (say that five times fast) and spirited them away so you could enjoy the workings of a finely twisted mind at work.—Editor

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO THE BOSTON MARATHON

SECTION 2A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE STAFF OF THE BAA TO ALLOW YOU ADMISSION TO THE BOSTON MARATHON, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HELP TO DEFINE YOU AS A RUNNER?

I am a dynamic runner, often seen on the cover of major running publications.

I am addicted to the slap of soles on pavement.

I do several workouts a day.

I stretch before and after each run.

I log additional miles on a stationary bike and pump weights in the gym.

For me, a day without running is as dull as an infomercial knife set.

I speak Greek, Japanese, and Kenyan.

I am as lean as a goat.

I have a keen sense of humor.

I have been known to run speed workouts on my lunch breaks.

I have trained with Joseph Chebet.

I am an honorary member of the Santa Monica Track Club.

Severe inclines, such as Heartbreak Hill, do not faze me.

Using only a Swiss Army knife, I once single-handedly performed successful open-heart surgery on a fellow runner.

I am the subject of numerous documentaries on long distance running.

When I’m bored, I build running tracks for disadvantaged athletes.

I never fly off the handle when my Cytomax isn’t served at the proper temperature.

I am a novelist, a playwright, and a screenwriter, all on the subject of running. Critics worldwide swoon over my running lectures. I am unabashedly obsessed, undeniably besotted with the sport. I seek out marathons, as a person with a raging thirst seeks out bottled water. I can shake off a stroke as though it were a head cold.

I look good when I run.

I am a born leader. I have excellent stamina. Last summer I toured the United States on foot, averaging 250 miles a day. I have been tearing up the roads, and competition, for over 20 years. My resting pulse rate has earned me fame in international running circles.

Children and other runners love me.

I am a member of the IOC, RRCA, USATF, and the IBORF (International Brotherhood of Running Fanatics). I can juggle and run. I know the finishing order of every Boston runner since the race’s inception. My ego is harder to find than the remote control during an infomercial.

I am currently uninjured.

I hold the record for competing in the greatest number of marathons and ultramarathons—more than 2,000 and counting. I train on grass, gravel, concrete, asphalt, and dirt. I’m an excellent mechanic. I once made midcourse repairs on a disabled race ambulance. I have fashioned extraordinary running shoes using only a waffle iron and a hunk of rubber. I once ran across Australia in 200 days, 12 hours, and 4 minutes.

I do not have an uncontrollable urge to cut courses.

I have an entire room in my house devoted to the Boston Marathon.

I own over 25,000 race T-shirts.

I could not draw another breath without running each day.

I have a discipline and dedication to running that goes far beyond the boundaries of other sports. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life, but I forgot to write it down.

I have already booked my plane ticket to Boston.

I have had the following exams: rectal, EEG, muscle-motor analysis, urine test, stress test, patch test, reflex test, lung-capacity test, X-rays, and sperm count. I have never had measles, leprosy, or irregularity.

I do not feel people are out to get me, nor do I hate my father.

I plan to purchase several hundred dollars worth of official race souvenirs.

I have never suffered from halitosis, mitosis, comas, amnesia, or toenail fungus. Nor have I ever experienced headaches, gangrene, or spontaneous combustion.

I am often referred to as “The Michael Jordan of Running.”

I have recently communed with the running spirit of John A. Kelley.

THE WOODSTOCK MARATHON

For months now you’ve heard the whispers. A new marathon is about to make the scene. A mystery race will soon enter the picture. Today I am able to confirm those rumors. The name of that race is the Woodstock Marathon.

I loved the 1960s, and I bet you did, too. Remember all the peace, love, and good vibes? Remember bell-bottom pants and flower power and hippies in crumpled Volkswagen micro-buses, and chicken-shack pickups, and waxing philosophical over brown rice and organic bean sprouts? I miss that, don’t you? Isn’t it about time that we come together and repsychedelicize our lives with a groovy 26.2-mile race?

The Woodstock Marathon will do just that. It will be a running event for lovers of the Earth, peaceniks, aging bohemians, and hair farmers. Check this out: at the prerace expo we’ll have pro-life lectures, biodiversity council meetings, and mysticism gatherings. There will be relationship workshops for Runners Who Love Runners and a slide potluck hosted by the Committee to Legalize Hemp Athletic Clothing. We’ll have poets and belly dancers and every natural-food organization known to mankind jockeying and jostling for space.

Race day will be a real trip. To start things out, we’ll have music—free music. Tons of music: The Animals, The Troggs, Ten Years After, Vanilla Fudge, Country Joe and the Fish. All of it played at killer volume for the benefit of the deaf and toothless. Like me. We’ll burn incense and let runners line up wherever they want, just to keep things mellow.

We’ll let it all hang out on the course. It will be a place for self-discovery. A place to try on new running identities, to be fitted with a radical idea or two. Aid stations will be manned with posy sniffers, tree huggers, and toadstool worshippers. Mile splits will be given by waffle-soled gorp nibblers, green dweebs, and tofu twinks. The finish line crew will consist primarily of ecofreaks, ozone boneheads, and global warming dolts. Cheering the runners on will be droves of nappy-haired hippies, murmury liberals, three-bong-hit saviors of the Earth, and a few normal spectators. Of course, everyone will be flashing the peace sign.

On the evening before my last marathon, I let my wife talk me into dining (read: carboloading) at a posh French restaurant called Pierre’s. The place had a staggering variety of wines, an eclectic selection of background music, several dozen entrees, and a maitre d’ who copped a haughty ‘tude.

I’d rather wade through a shark tank in tuna underwear than ever go back there.

The main problem was the food. Or, rather, the lack of it. I’m a big eater, especially on the eve of a race. I like to dine at all-you-can-eat buffets, where I can chow down like a crazed cocker spaniel and break the crisp evening air with a heartfelt belch. You can’t do that in a French restaurant. One must never be seen packing in carbohydrates or acting strange in any way that might spread discord or uneasiness.

No. Wouldn’t want that, would we?

I had eaten very little that day, so I was starved by the time we got to Pierre’s. I started on bread sticks as soon as we were seated and never stopped. I watched meals go by as waiters danced between tables. I wanted to devour everything on the menu. My body was like a furnace set high enough to liquefy steel. Every morsel of bread that passed through my mouth was consumed in the raging inferno of my hypermetabolism. I pictured the open furnace door on a locomotive as the crew shoveled in coal.

Finally, our waiter arrived and walked us through the menu’s obscurities. The evening’s specials were described with a sumptuousness that was, well . . . incomprehensible.

“Our specials tonight are goat-cheese terrine with arugula juice,” he intoned. “Sautéed cod with capers and baby vegetables. Coastal shrimp cooked in spiced carrot juice. Squid rings in aioli linguine with roasted garlic puree. Warm frisee salad with duck confit. And sushi.”

“I never eat sushi,” I replied. “I have trouble eating things that are merely unconscious. Got any plain pasta?”

No, he did not. But he did have a wide variety of other strange selections, such as cream of blueberry soup, veal loin rubbed with sage and coriander, Russian Coulibiac of salmon, and fillet of grouper oursinade. All served in portions suitable for someone with the disposition of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Buddha—some tiny, brown, selfless person.

The waiter left us to decide. At the bottom of the menu were prawns, drizzled with 100-year-old balsamic vinegar, priced at $75. This caught my eye.

“Did you see the price on those prawns?” I asked my wife.

“Keep your voice down,” she hissed.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Keep it down.”

“Look at the prawns. Seventy-five dollars! For four prawns.” I put the menu down, cleared my throat, and settled deeper in my chair.

“I see it,” she said.

“Do you know how many pasta dinners I could buy with $75?” I asked.

“This is your pre-race dinner,” said Linda, scowling. “I wanted it to be special.” The waiter reappeared. Linda ordered her meal. “I’ll have spring rolls with fresh peppermint leaves, steamed rice . . . and prawns,” she said.

“Whew doggies. Ka-ching!” I muttered. My smile was pasted on, but I was beginning to feel like a famine victim. I was absolutely starving. Growing thinner by the second. If I didn’t get a meal—a big meal, a real meal—inside me soon, they could just fax me to the starting line.

“Let’s see . . .” I said, searching the menu desperately. “Gee, I don’t know . . .”

The waiter sighed.

“Just pick something,” hissed Linda.

“Okay,” I said, picking what looked to be the heapingest helping I could find. “I’ll have the pan-seared cutlets, layered with steamed sweetmeat and baked in an inverted clay dong under a lattice work of woozle leaves and sun-ripened chaff noodles.”

When our meals were finally served, I stared in disbelief. The portions were tiny. Itty-bitty salads. Miniature cutlets. Pasta that could fit on the head of a pin. I glanced around the room to see if by mistake we were being served a dinner ordered by Ken and Barbie. As I ate, I felt like I was growing emptier with every bite. What I really wanted was a tub of pasta. A baked potato drenched in melted butter. A wagon wheel-sized pizza encased in a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. I wanted to be eating my way toward a condition where I would never have to eat again. I wanted some real chow, damn it!

I settled for another helping of bread sticks.