Wendy Burch was sent out to cover an iron man competition yesterday on Hermosa Beach, CA. However, it was a special type of iron man, an Americanized version per say. It involves running just 1 mile, paddling a mile, and then chugging a 6 pack.
It seems like a great event in all honesty. 90% of the reason I know people do 5K’s is because of the complimentary beer at the end, this seems to be the same deal just a little more extreme. Ok, a lot more.
After all that running and paddling, they huddled up. Groups of men, and yes, a few brave women, formed rings around cases of beer. Cheering each other on as they chugged. Nearby judges, with clip boards in hand, made check marks every time a can was crushed. From my vantage point, the first beer went down easy. That one seemed refreshing and life-affirming for some of the participants. Around that time, the director of our show told me to “stand by.” They would come back out to us in about ten minutes.
After Wendy was back live, she grabbed a large man to interview about the competition. The size of his belly told us he’d been practicing, but what she didn’t know was what he had painted on his back. The man had a large bullseye with the words “puke here” painted on him. And the hurlers were simply out there practicing their aim.
4th of July day drinking + live tv = pic.twitter.com/aECk7DRhWb
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) July 4, 2017
What an absolute wreck. That girl actually paid a ton of money for journalism school and woke up at 3AM to be part of the morning news simply to get puked on. The best part? It seems the camera shut off due to a quick-hand technical director. But nope, it was simply a glitch with the service and Wendy assumed she was still live, and continued interviewing people.
While the anchors tried to regain their composure and go onto the next story. I assumed I was still live. So, for the better part of the next two minutes, I just kept interviewing drunken people. while sudsy substances flew in in the air and landed in my hair.
Let’s say, after that, it was a wrap.
I drove home, took a hot shower and a long nap.
When I woke, I was greeted by thousands of retweets, links to the YouTube video, and a message from a New York Times reporter who wanted to talk about “the incident”.
You know… I once had a nightmare about reporting live, in the middle of a mosh pit. with hundreds of sweaty men throwing up all around me.
To all of you aspiring journalists out there, I’m here to tell you, dreams really do come true… especially in the age of viral videos.
Read Wendy’s blog post about the incident here
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