The Marathon Men

Well, after years of running onto the field and trying to steal the football during the game, Matt finally made the big screen at Memorial Stadium for the right reasons. He ran a marathon under four hours. Sort of.

Matt has run the Chicago Marathon seven times. The first year, he ran 3:46. The second year, he ran 3:59. Since, then he never got close to breaking four hours. Three years ago - the last time he ran Chicago - he ran 4:10. Way in the back of his head, Matt thought maybe one day he'd be able to break four hours again. Finally, Matt figured out how. Run it as a relay.

Matt, Eric (The Big M) and Bruce ran the first Illinois Marathon and did pretty darn well. As a relay, they ran 3:45, which is 45 minutes faster than they thought they could run. And it's a little more impressive considering they only have three friends. See, the relay was supposed to be a four-man relay. But no one can stand to be around these guys.

Instead, Eric ran the first leg, Matt the second, Bruce the third, and then all three ran the last leg. (Team The EngEconJournIBs was 48th of 189 relays.) The race was pretty cool, especially if you went to Illinois. It ran through downtown Champaign, right down the center of Green Street and finished on the 50-yard line at Memorial Stadium - hence the picture on the scoreboard. (look closely)

Matt was happy with his run.

He ran his 6.9 mile leg in about 50 minutes, which utterly surprised him.

Of course, he could barely walk the next day and Lynne had to carry his jellybeans to him.

Now here's the challenge: Matt is making a "31" in the picture shown above.

Can you figure out why? Because Matt can't remember what that is supposed to signify. But he sure looks super cool.