Audio By Carbonatix
Matthew Inman — best known in the land of viral Internet comics as creator of “The Oatmeal”, has accepted that he’s never going to win or even qualify for marquee races like the Boston Marathon, “probably due to the fact that I constantly eat like the world is coming to an end,” he says. But he’s running all the same, and has worked his way up from 5Ks to fifty-mile ultra-marathons.
In his new book of cartoons, The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances, Inman reveals that his motivating factor is the Blerch, the “fat little cherub” and “wretched, lazy beast” that is his former self.
For every Zen koan Inman has to dispatch about running, that inner fat kid has a stereotype-shattering rejoinder.
“That’s how it goes with runners: Through pain, we find serenity,” he writes in one of the book’s best stories, about a solo run on Mount Fuji in Japan. “The greater the agony, the greater our eventual absolution.” It’s just that sometimes, it turns out, that “absolution” means stumbling upon a vending machine on the verge of despair and slurping down a sugary purple drink that “tasted like someone stole the balls of a pegasus and blended them into a smoothie.”
Are you a die-hard fan to the very end of the earth? Meet Inman tonight when he signs copies of the book, starting at 7 p.m. at the Tattered Cover at 9315 Dorchester Street in Highlands Ranch. Admission is free; visit tatteredcover.com for information.
Mon., Oct. 13, 7 p.m., 2014
