Week 3. Avoid Heatstroke.
Three years ago, after going on a run with a friend, I said to him, “we are going to run the Boston marathon.” It was a moment of triumphant and wildly inaccurate self-appraisal. What I should have said, of course, was “we are going to squander many months of our youth playing video games and imbibing mind-altering substances.” A certain jogging of the spirit, if you will, but not of the legs. We’re more the cerebral type.
Last week, after so much physical apathy, it was time to turn a new leaf. The metaphorical kind of leaf, the kind that is good for your lungs. The kind that starts with a six mile run along the banks of the Charles.
It was pleasant. Hot, a little humid, but I’m sure Pheidippides probably didn’t have it much better himself. Like him, I was in a race against time. Would Sparta respond to his pleas for help, and save the civilized world as he knew it from destruction? Will I make it back in time for dinner, and save my pocketbook from having to buy yet another mediocre burrito from Boloco?
I did not make it back in time. Instead, I got heatstroke. Well, technically, I got what is known as “uncomfortably hot.” But boy was it uncomfortable. And hot.
Being this dehydrated, there was a good chance I could finish the run looking like Otzi the Iceman. Fortunately, my taut, moisturized complexion was saved by a foolhardy willingness to eat unidentified plants, and what looked like a stretch of pebbly goat shit on the sidewalk. Of course, one man’s goat shit tree is another, less near-sighted man’s mulberry bush, and knowing this, I made like a giraffe and extended my neck toward the heavens, tongue out. Then a shooting pain went through my back and I decided instead to reach out with my hand and pick some berries.
It was delicious.
The moral of this story, like the other stories I tell on this summer research journal, has nothing to do with science, or really anything. It is simple: don’t go running after eating half-prosciutto, half-kielbasa pizza. Unless there are berry trees.
This is week 3′s installment of my journal as a systems biology research intern, a week late and chock full of factual inaccuracies. You’ll be happy to know that last week I actually wrote about science, but not really.
Hi there,
I found your post very interesting, with the exception of the mediocre burritos at Boloco. If that’s truly the case, it sounds like we owe you a refund of some kind… and a sincere apology at that. Feel free to send me your Boloco Card # (or your mailing address if you don’t have one) and we’ll load some freebies up… it’s the least we can do.
I do a lot of sporadic running and biking… and i’ll be on the lookout for berries next time!
Cheers, John (Co-Founder, Boloco)
PS. we get a Google alert when someone writes about Boloco… which is how I found this post… we take all feedback pretty seriously and to heart, even if it wasn’t necessarily intended for our eyes.
Yeah, Boloco seriously sucks, even if they are 1337 internet marketers. To anyone reading this blog: he’s not kidding about the moisturization – Neutrogena hand cream is a permanent fixture of his desk.
Full disclosure: I took John up on the offer and sent him my Boloco number. If the staff at the Harvard Square Boloco were half as conscientious about how much buffalo sauce they put on their burritos as the company is about internet PR, then the place would be my favorite joint. Alas, I can only wallow in my disappointment, while my fingers wallow in more sour spiciness than my tastebuds can handle.
Hi all,
All i’m doing is responding to feedback. If that’s now termed “internet PR”, then i’m guilty as charged. I kind of thought that’s what we all wanted out of companies these days… more personal responses, etc. which is what we’ve been doing every day since we opened our first restaurant nearly 12 years ago.
The post was hardly about Boloco though… let’s stay on topic
Thanks
John