Way back in 2003, I ran a marathon! Honest! I ran the Baltimore Marathon on Oct. 17, 2003, in 7 hours, 26 mins and 49 seconds.
One of my friends posted this morning that she was watching the Baltimore Running Festival, and it threw me back 15 years to when I ran the marathon that was part of the same event. I actually trained for it over six months with the AIDS Marathon Training Program, and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever done.
It was also my first attempt at a blog. Of course, my domain no longer exists, but I saved the pages and had a wonderful time reading through my journey again... so I'm going to post them here as well.
I have to figure out how to do it because it was an actual web site with a lot of pages, but I'll post a link here when I'm done.
Meanwhile, here's my evidence that I truly DID finish a marathon! (Psst, they let us start early, so add 30 minutes to the time.)
Before I left for LA, my friends and I had already
determined that there WOULD be a viewing party for my episode of Jeopardy. We
had decided to have it at Nanny O’Brien’s because they had a back room with a
huge TV that we could all enjoy. And then I found out that my episode was on a
Wednesday, which is the day of the week that Nanny’s has their Wing Night,
which is a HUGE success. I talked it over with Brian and asked Beth about it,
and we decided to move the party to The Board Room in Dupont Circle, where we could have it upstairs with
the sound on. Beth was so excited about it, she said she was going to have a
viewing party there even if we weren’t there! Haha!
So, I reserved space with Beth, assuming probably about
10-15 people would be coming to my party. And then I posted the invitation on
Facebook… and immediately about 20 people responded that they were going! So I
told Beth it looked like it would be closer to 20-25 people for the Happy Hour.
Because I know a lot of people outside of DC, I decided to post two
invitations: one to the physical party at the Board Room and one just to let
people know when it was on so they could watch wherever they were in the
country. The outpouring of congratulations and fun was just amazing to me. The
only problem was that I had no way to show it to my friends who do NOT live in
the States! Oh well.
Anyway – it was finally May 1, and I made it to the Board
Room and some of my friends were already there. Beth had set up a sign on the
stairs to indicate that it was my party (Yay!), but the few people that were
already there were still downstairs, except Eddie who had already staked a
claim at the bar. I was in a bit of a whirlwind, because people just kept
coming! I’d get through saying Hi to one group of friends and then another
bunch of people would come in. I had friends from college, friends from Bob’s, friends
from Cleveland Park, and even friends from Facebook! I counted 65 people at one
point, and still more showed up! And the all introduced themselves and had
great conversations, and many drinks. It was very crowded in that upstairs
bar, but it was a blast! Eventually, I ordered a bunch of pizzas from Flippin’ Pizza, so we all could sit, eat and get settled before the show started.
There was actually another small party in the area as well,
who were planning to watch basketball. We told them that we were going to be
watching Jeopardy with the sound on, but then they could turn it all back to
the basketball if they wanted. They were excited to join in – in fact, one girl
said, “Oh we like to play along!” I responded, “Funny, so do I!” heeheehee
Watching the show was hilarious. Everyone was cheering and booing,
and laughing and saying “Shhhh!” whenever I said anything on the show so they could hear me. I think
every TV in the bar was tuned to Jeopardy for that half hour, and it was really
a great, raucous party.
Omar took a picture of me, with me on TV -- VERY surreal!
Hanging with the Williamssss!
And as Double Jeopardy wound down, everyone was getting
anxious and they were yelling “WITHERS! It’s BILL WITHERS!” at the screen, but…
I still didn’t get it, and ended up not making it to Final Jeopardy… AGAIN. I
looked around and everyone’s face was just this gaping expression of disbelief,
so I stood up, spread my hands and shrugged, “Did I forget to tell you that I
LOST???”
Much laughter and silliness ensued, and continued into the night...
Thus endeth my Adventures in Jeopardy. Except that I get called "Jeopardy Girl" on quite a few occasions, and I am a big pusher of doing the online Jeopardy tests. Because, that's the only way to get on the show these days!
...
Thanks to ALL of my friends and family for all of the support they gave
me throughout this adventure. I really could NOT have done it without
you!
I cannot even express how amazing that night felt to me. I
kept telling people that I felt like the Grinch in that my heart just kept
getting bigger and bigger as more people showed up. And my heart was pretty big
to begin with! I loved that although a lot of my friends hadn’t met each other before,
they all got along and talked and laughed with each other.This whole experience was really a once-in-a-lifetime, amazing and
awesome whirlwind ride. I can’t believe it sometimes that I’ve actually been on
Jeopardy, and that all of those people actually came to a party for ME. I
always joke around that I’m the center of the universe (note the t-shirt), but that really is a
joke to me. So it was very weird to ACTUALLY be the center of attention – and boy, was that a
LOT of attention! But it was also fabulous. Absolutely FABULOUS!
I’ll be honest, I
don’t remember a whole lot of the actual show!
I do remember loving
the fact that I was playing against John and Larry, because they were the two
guys I liked best out of the contestants and they were funny and excited too. I
started getting a little antsy, but then I remembered my mantra – just do your
best and have fun – and I calmed right down.
I remember meeting
Alex – he asked me about why I had spoken Chinese first, and we actually had a
fairly long conversation. He asked if Cantonese was easier than Mandarin and I
explained that Mandarin had four tones and Cantonese had nine, so I couldn’t
say! And then he asked why I had spoken Chinese before I spoke English and I
said that I was born in HK because my parents were medical missionaries there.
And, of course, he asked if I still spoke Chinese and I said, “Siu siu!”
(“A little bit,” in Cantonese), and raised my fingers together to indicate a
little bit. We all laughed and then he went on the next person.
During the second commercial break, Alex came back to take
the pictures with us. Earlier in the taping, one of the categories had been “The
Sexiest Pot Pourri Ever” – in which Alex read all the questions in a Barry
White voice. It was hilarious, and I think Alex realized that he had heard my
laugh during that taping, because for my picture, he came up looked directly at
me and said, “Heeeyyyy, Deborah” a la Barry White. I cracked up and responded, “Heeeyyyy
Alex” in the same tone, and they took our picture. I think it’s hilarious that
people have said Alex looks a little creepy in the picture… because he kind of
was! But in a good way…
Me and Alex gettin' a little crazy...
I also remember that
the categories seemed really hard. There was one category – basically, “people
who have died by their own inventions” – where I seriously thought to myself,
“should I just drop the clicker? No, they might choose a different category”
and then I got the $200 answer because I knew a “famous landmark in Paris”
(Eiffel Tower, duh)! I knew a lot of the answers, but John, The Bionic Thumb.
and Larry, the Mailman, were just too fast for me. But, I got some answers that
I was very proud of, specifically Joe Lewis and The Magnificent Ambersons.
(John asked me later where that one had come from, and I just shrugged…) But, I
kept going under. I honestly had no idea what my score was until the end of the
first round when the handler came out and said, “Hey Deborah, we’d like to see some
POSITIVE numbers, OK?” heehee They even checked my clicker to make sure it was
working correctly.
And then Double
Jeopardy … we got down to the last few questions and I suddenly realize that I
was nearly $2000 in debt! OH NO! But,
the last question on the board was worth $2000 and it would put me back in the
game if I rang in first and got it right. It was a music question. And the
answer came up and I knew it! It was Bill…. Bill…. Bill….. URGH!!!!! WHAT WAS
HIS LAST NAME????
So, yeah, I lost on Jeopardy! I ended up with a negative balance, and I wasn’t
able to stay on for Final Jeopardy. They put me in a chair on the side of the
set for the rest of the show, so I got to see what the Final Jeopardy question
was. And I wouldn’t have gotten it anyway! But, I was still grinning like an
idiot because WOW, what an amazing time I had had!
They broke for lunch at this point, so everyone was leaving the studio. They took us back to the green
room while the general audience filed out, and then I was able to meet up with Cathy
in the studio lobby. We got some great pictures on the fake podia they had set
up, and I think Cathy got a picture with the Alex stand-up thingie.
Then we
followed the crowds out for lunch at Subway. I was still revved up, so it was
kind of nice to have everyone else out of the studio as well as us. We just
didn’t go back!
We went to get wine instead! Heeheehee! I think that was
when we went to Trader Joe’s, but it could have been when we got the boxes of
wine from Target – it all runs together somehow! We talked about going to a
movie or something, but I think we just ended up going back to the hotel. I
really don’t remember everythign exactly because my brain was exhausted!
I know that we went back and got in our jammies and drank
wine and read or napped. At one point, I went outside for a cigarette and that
was really the first time that it hit me that I had lost, and I got a little
sad. I went back up to the room and admitted it to Cathy, and she reminded me
that I didn’t lose, I just didn’t win the whole dang thing. Just getting on the
show was a big win! I’m glad Cathy was there to talk to, because it really was
a let-down… but I really did have a great time!
The next
day
Cathy had told me earlier that one of the other contestants,
who came in second, came off the stage crying his eyes out. Apparently, winning Jeopardy! had been his
life-long dream, so second place just wasn’t good enough. We met his wife at
breakfast the next day and I just felt so sorry for her. She kept trying to
help him, but nothing would work. For her
sake, I’m glad that she came down for breakfast, if only to get out of the
room! And I’m glad she sat with us – I hope we helped!
After breakfast, Cathy noticed that John’s family were
hanging out in the lobby, just like we had all done the day before. (Cathy knew
all of the contestant guests because she is just as shy and retiring as I am –
i.e., NOT!) Apparently, John was still playing! We didn’t have any major plans
for the day, so they invited us to join them. I called the studio contact and
asked if we could get seats as guests to watch the filming. They said yes, so
Cathy and I headed over to the studio to watch the taping of the second week of
shows! It was a MUCH less stressful event for both of us!
We left at lunchtime
again, and futzed around until we went back to the hotel to crash out again. It was really a whirlwind trip, with a lot of stress and
nervous activity followed by exaustion… and wine. We flew back the following
morning and I think I drove back to my apartment in DC instead of spending the
night with Cathy and David.
And then came the hard part…
My episode was
scheduled to air May 1, 2013. I got back home on January 10, 2013. How the HECK
was I supposed to keep the results quiet for that long???
I had already
decided that I wouldn’t be telling anyone the results of the show. And yes, I
was allowed to tell people, so long as it wasn’t published anywhere… like
on Facebook! I wasn't sure that some of my friends would be able to keep it quiet, so I decided to just not tell anyone.
