Wednesday, September 07, 2005

TASK #16 Get into the Guinness Book of World Records

This is us after our attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records

Yes, if you can believe it, we accomplished our goal. We began our record-setting kickball game on Saturday Sept 3, 2005, at 6pm CT and ended Sunday Sept 4, 2005, at 6:07pm. (We added 7 minutes to our original goal to show we were willing to do more than the minimum.)
Pictured here is team LoveSac, my team. Named after the teams sponsor.

I gotta tell you, this thing was fun but it was no joke. Considering a normal kickball game is about 50 minutes long, we literally played about 24+ games in a row, non-stop. I believe we played for over 217 innings and scored a total of 238 runs! (109 to 129) Crazy!!

And originally I was under the impression that we would get to sleep during breaks...didn't happen. Because of the strict Guinness rules, we had to follow standard game rules, which meant that even when we were on break from playing the field, we were still required to kick when our turn came up (no relief kickers), so basically, depending on the games pace, we'd have to kick about every 20 minutes even during our breaks.

Another fun rule - we could never leave the field of play (except for bathroom breaks which were logged). If we did, we were done! So basically we had to camp out on the fields sidelines and if we needed something from our cars or elsewhere, we had to ask a runner (volunteer) to get it for us.

Regardless of all that, I've gotta say I lucked out finding this opportunity to make my Guinness attempt. This was a great group of people. And in the end, many of us were choked up with the realization that despite our major fatigue and injuries, not one person from either team quit! And believe me, watching people practically crawl on the field after 10, 15, 20 hours, that says something about human determination.

That last moment, we raised our tired arms, cheering into the new days blue sky, singing "We are the champions" in unison - it was a moment I'll never forget it!

Our endlessly positive and unbelievably helpful organizer, Nathan Kehoe, said it best - we were the first, and no one would ever be able to take that away from us!

Hats off team LoveSac and Team MUSA!

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