This past weekend I watched some of the Track and Field World Championships.  Because I am a longtime runner, watching a track meet on TV always puts a spring in my step.  Sadly, this spring is squeaky and kinked.

(On the plus side, the squeaky sound is muffled by twenty-five pounds of fat that I have strategically added since I last ran track).

Monday I was chugging down the street at lunchtime, imagining that I still had all my cartilage and could run as much slower than a world class athlete as I could twenty years ago, instead of as much slower than a world class athlete as I do today.  Naturally, I had a great idea for not simply a television show, but a reality TV franchise.

(Legal notice so that I can more easily sue if this idea is stolen by a network:  I conceived of this idea on August 17, 2009).

I don’t watch reality TV unless you count live sporting events or The Weather Channel.  I’m not a TV snob; I just don’t find reality shows entertaining.  My exposure to real people during an average day is such that I do not need my reality supplemented.  Thus it is not without irony that I have conceptualized a reality show that I would definitely watch.  The show would capitalize on these facts:

1. Shows where people lose weight seem to be popular
2. Shows where people live in a house or on an island and fuss with each other about contrived situations seem to be popular
3. Sports are popular
4. People having mid-life crises and willing to humiliate themselves on television (and, I suppose, in blogs) are a dime a dozen

My show would be called The Miler.

What we’d do is scour old high school or college athletics results and determine a good measuring stick for show participants.  For example, maybe we’d decide to invite men aged 40 to 42 who ran their fastest mile in high school or college within a certain narrow performance range.  They’d have been serious track athletes but not elite.  Participants would all have put on a similar amount of weight since that time, and while still somewhat active, would all be in similar states of general decline.

We’d throw 15 or 20 of these guys into a big house.  They get access to running gear, a weight room, nutritionists, chefs, physical trainers, and sports medicine doctors.  They interview and then choose a specific coach with whom to work and design a training plan.  We contrive some situation where the participants and coaches pick who they want to work with (we’d use one of those rose ceremonies for this episode just to be kitschy).  They get to do individual workouts but some group training is compulsory to foster rivalries and competition.  Winners of specific workouts may get access to a hot tub or some other desirable bonus, like extra ibuprofen.

After a few weeks of setup and training the group starts racing the mile live on television every week as part of the show.  The bottom two finishers each week are sent home.  The coach of the winner gets a new pair of tight gray BIKE coaches’ shorts.  Maybe somebody gets a free pass to the next round based on certain criteria during the training week.  Is the winner each week really the fastest guy, or is the fastest guy loitering in mid-pack, holding his cards for the final and trying not to get injured?  Is the guy who has been moving up through the field each week going to ultimately threaten the early favorites?  Will two mid-packers form a pact one week and try to control the pace of the race to give them the best chance of staying alive one more week?  Whose training regimen will give them the best “bounce” leading up to the final race?  And it goes without saying that in the final each competitor would wear replica gear from their glory days (supplied of course by a major sportswear company with which we would have a lucrative promotional agreement).

We would do a tie-in with a major college football conference so that a promotional race could be held during halftime of a college game at a stadium packed with fans at a game shown on the same network (maybe in Oregon where track is big).  This would be great halftime entertainment for the fans and give the network more exposure for the reality show franchise because of all the people who would see the race.  Heck, we could even have a preliminary race featuring stars of one of their other reality shows.  Maybe one race would be a virtual race in which the competitors race alone on their home tracks simultaneously.  The mind boggles at the possibilities.

Final winner on The Miler gets bragging rights, a stack of cash, and free running shoes for life.

Oh, and their photo on the Wheaties box.  Not a Wheaties box.  The Wheaties box.

And how’s this a reality TV franchise?  Well, of course there should be a version with women.  Then the next year we repeat the whole thing with new competitors.  Or you change to Freestyle (swimmers), or Linkster (golfers), or Forehand (tennis), etc.  I’m going to go work out the rest of the details so I’ll be ready when one of the networks calls and wants to buy the concept from me.  I won’t be unreasonable on the asking price.  And it goes without saying that I get the best room in that house.

Do you know that feeling when, even if for a fleeting moment, you wish you could assume a different personality?  I certainly do.  Maybe this is why I enjoy sports mascots so much.  I envy a person who can act like a buffoon in public while maintaining the kind of anonymity usually reserved for those, say, writing an obscure blog.

Before we go any further, I need to ask you a question.  Did you see the movie Flashdance?  I don’t remember if I ever actually watched Flashdance, but I definitely remember the video for the song “Maniac” from the movie.  (The Internet tells me it was sung by Michael Sembello, and who am I to argue).  Actually, more important than the movie or the video is whether you are aware of the famous scene where the main character dances with really quick footsteps to that song, and at some point for a reason I cannot recall, a bunch of water splashes down.  I’m not big on pop culture but I think that scene is probably iconic even if the water probably did warp the dance floor.

One reason I think the scene is iconic is because it is entrenched in our culture enough that the inherently funny Chris Farley mimicked it when getting mud hosed off him at a gas station in the movie Tommy Boy.  He quick-stepped in the water and sang “She’s a maniac, MANIAC, on the floor.  And she’s dancin’ like she’s never danced before.”  I laughed out loud.

So yesterday I’m running by myself through downtown Lexington during my lunch hour.  The temperature was mid-eighties and climbing.  Not ideal running weather, but it was the only weather available during my lunch hour.  I looked a block ahead and saw two rather burly fellows wearing city government shirts.  They were standing next to a water truck with garden hoses attached, watering some taxpayer-supported flowers along the sidewalk.  I thought to myself that it would feel good to run through the water spray, and they would probably be mildly amused to have some random citizen jogger ask them to turn their hoses on him.

And that’s when I remembered Chris Farley.

So let me ask you another question.  Imagine you are a burly city government worker standing downtown on a hot day, watering flowers.  Imagine that a random jogger approaches and beckons for you to spray him down.  Somewhat amused, you turn the hose on him, whereupon he starts quick-stepping and sings “She’s a maniac, MANIAC, on the floor.  And she’s dancin’ like she’s never danced before.”

Would that not be one of the funniest things you had ever seen?  Would you not tell every one of your burly government co-workers about the hilarious jogger guy who re-enacted scene where Chris Farley re-enacted the scene from Flashdance?

Please tell me that moment would have made your day.

So this is where I wish I had adopted a different personality for that moment.  As I approached them I only had about three seconds from the time I had the Chris Farley inspiration until I would have had to spring into action.  I hesitated.  What if these guys are so young they don’t even remember Tommy Boy, much less Flashdance?  Suddenly I was upon them.  I threw my arms out to the side, raised my eyebrows, and turned toward them to indicate I was overheated from my run and wanted them to spray me.  One of them did turn the hose my way, but his expression indicated that he couldn’t tell if I was joking or serious.  Discretion being the better part of valor, he decided it was better to assume I was kidding and let me risk heat exhaustion than to risk getting fired because some random jogger sued the city after being waylaid by an unwelcome jet of (what may have been unsanitary pond) water.

So I just smiled in a friendly manner and kept on running.  He smiled and turned back to his flowers.

So now I’m frustrated.  If I were just sufficiently demonstrative I could have at least gotten cooled down.  And if I were even bolder I may well have given at least three people a story they could tell for years.  Alas.

And the worst part is that I’ve had “Maniac” stuck in my head for over twenty-four hours now.

(And I’m dancin’ like I’ve never danced before).