Training in a meat locker

Marianne DeMarco

New York City, New York

34

Running Experience:
Advanced

Why should we pick you to go to the North Pole?:
Because I've been training for this thing like crazy. So much so that I've trained myself broke. I can't believe what all this gear costs. It's unreal.

Tell us about your cold-weather race experience:
None. Nada. Zip. I found a bitchin meat locker in Harelem that's hooked me up, though. It's just like the North Pole.

Tell us about your marathon experience, including times, results, etc.:
I ran both the Boston and New York; 4:14 & 5:04, resepectively. I did run the stairs of the World Trade Center in 1999, and did quite well. They say (well, a guy who ran the marathon last year said) that it's so unlike other marathons that climbing stairs is much better training than standard running. Seems that running in snow shoes is more like marching really quickly.

What do you expect your North Pole Marathon time to be?:
9 hours.

Can you write well? Explain:
Well, I wouldn't write about how I puked up tuna fish on a passing runner during a speed run along Riverside Drive yesterday or about the time I was pursued up the Northern hills in Central Park by a 6-foot-plus crazy and half-naked guy on a glittery girls' bike that had pinwheels on the handles. And I can't very well admit things like the fact that tonight's dinner consisted of two donuts (chocolate glazed & a cruller) so I guess I'll just have to make stuff up.

Tell us about your media experience:
I was an Associate Producer at A&E Television for six years and a film student for longer than I care to admit. I produced segments on everything from horror movie companies (see clips) to the Olympics/Paralymics in Salt Lake City in 2002 to restaurants in New Orleans. I made a short film that got awards from 20th Century Fox and Bobby & Peter Farrelly (the "There's Something About Mary" guys) but it failed to get me a job and now lives under my bed with 20 VHS copies. On the other side of the camera, I've been in a lot of "local news pieces" because local news channels just love "wacky stuff" like the 15 piece all-female accordion orchestra I play in. We keep telling them we're not wacky, but they don't believe us.

Websites:
www.ireallyshouldbewriting.com (my plain old website)
www.AmericasNextTopWaddle.com (my website for the North Pole Marathon adventure-- should be live on Feb 1)
www.mainsqueezeorchestra.com (the site for the Main Squeeze Orchestra, the aforementioned not-at-all wacky accordion orchestra)

Show us your video:
ireallyshouldbewritingclips.ning.com

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