Vive La France!

I adore most things French, think Paris really is the city of lights and one of the best places to visit on the face of the earth. I love the food, the wine, and, dare I say it, Les Femmes. Could even be said to be something of a Francophile. And now I can hope to enjoy them all and so much more as I am in receipt of my application form for the Marathon du Medoc. .http://www.marathondumedoc.com/ And you have to admire the French audacity in sending out a Marathon application form that requires a little sleuthing to understand, translation, and some ground work to uncover the true meanings that are merely hinted at in French idioms... For example I give you - Pardonez-moi! - Pour example... Ce qui est ceci... "Non deguises s'abstenir" - My buddy Seymour had a rather strange take on this, something like, "Don't give up", while I myself took it to mean something more like, "Be absent without disguise". Which actually astonished me in the end, because my good friend Paul - who is an Englishman living and working in Paris because he fell hopelessly and irretrieveably in love with the amazing Sophie - after consulting with Sophie said that it pretty much meant, "Don't Bother Coming Without a Costume!" Now how great is that!? You absolutely must go to the web site and check it out. The Marathon du Medoc winds through the heart and soul of the best wine country in France, and in celebration of that fact, the French marathon organizers see to it that for every sip of water you must endure and suffer through, you can alleviate your misery by washing down all that dreadful H2O with some wine. And you can further abate your pain by imbibing some cheese and oysters and prawns and other French culinary delights along the way. My God, this is the way a marathon should be run, as a celebration of all the good things in life! So I hope my fellow Vancouver marathon running buddies can get their shit in gear - the idea being that a group of us would like to run as a team - the vaunted and intrepid Coureur de Bois from Canada, or, for you hopeless Anglophones out there, the Runners of the Woods - and buy their plane tickets!