As the sun rises on Jules Verne week, we Passamaquoddians take some time to think of the wonders of Jules Verne. How did he make that thing fly? And what about that boat thing, how did he get that to float? And what about that thing that went to the moon? More amazing are the things that he created that we still use to this day: Not only did he invent the perpetual gear engine, but he also gave the sticky notes their stick and invented the George Forman Grill.

In full disclosure, the brothers over at the comb and tome were telling me that we got Verne all wrong. That Verne was actually a french author who created fictional visions of the future. Now I was sure that I was dealing with idiots so I turned a blender on to drown out their blubbering. For the record, Verne also invented two of the speeds on the blender… grind and puree’.

So first thing on the agenda kicking off Verne week is our 8 mile marathon! (Interestingly, I read about a television station out west that also had an 8 mile marathon. But theres involved showing a M & M movie multiple times, back to back)

For this run, runners will travel from Coopers Light… North past the Temporary motel toward downtown… There they’ll pass Fitch’s Great Escape and run through Sand dollar Ella’s Castle. From here they’ll head back toward the harbor passing the Kickin’ Krabaret and ChumShop Earth. Then they’ll come to the end back at Coopers Light.

We’ll offer updated reports as the race progresses. Now on with the race! And on with VERNE WEEK!

UPDATE! 7:00 The race time is here.

This year one of our local sponsors, “O-me O-my” is giving out their signature “Herring Whip” at mile marker 4.5. For those of you unfamiliar with this delicacy, its basically a whipped herring soft serve ice cream. You can also get it in a swirl with sardine whip.

More updates as the race progresses.

Update: 12 Noon… Well, we have some marathon winners… All three of them are out-of-towners and were sketchy with responses when asked questions to find out who they are… We’ll post some pictures of the winners later on in the day…

Additionally, we have had a major problem on the field today. We had 65 runners start off the race. 3 of them finished the run, 61 of them got sick from their herring whip as the “O-Me O-My” experimented with a Gefilte Fish flavor. The 1 remaining runner stopped of in Sand Dollad Ella’s and is still seated at the bar, a bit too drunk to finish. Again, pictures later.

Congratulations to our winners, whoever they are…