The Tom Waits Run

Tom Waits-løpet (Eng. the Tom Waits Run), is a traditional Oslo, Norway pub crawl. It is held every spring at the beginning of May, on the same date as the "Grete Waitz Run", in later years renamed to Vårspranget (Eng. the "Spring Step" or "Spring Leap"), a 5 kilometre run on level ground through Oslo, intended for amateur female runners and joggers. While the latter seems to have become defunct as of 2007, it remains to be seen whether the Tom Waits Run will continue.

Description

The run starts in Old Oslo, at the Medieval Park ruins, at 14:00. The participants are not required to run, nor is there any time taken - the sheer scale of the undertaking is a challenge enough in itself (see Route below). The visited bars and pubs will often, either at their own vocation or at the loud urging of the participants, play Tom Waits records for the duration of the run.

Unlike its near namesake, the Tom Waits Run is open for participants of all genders. As with the actual run, the date is set to coincide with the first Saturday of May; however, the Tom Waits run is not organized in the traditional sense by any committee or association, although official T-shirts are usually available for sale.

A similar pub crawl of the same name is held annually in Kristiansand in the south of Norway. Apparently this run features diplomas for those who finish [http://www.cbov.net/Kilden27.pdf] .

Name and motto

Aside from the obvious pun on the name of the famed Norwegian marathon runner Grete Waitz, who instigated a run in her own name for the sake of motivating physically unfit women to start exercising (perhaps similar to various so-called "Couch to 5K" exercise plans), the use of the name of American singer Tom Waits could also be seen as one expression of counterculture, a pitting of the mainstream Norwegian ideals of a healthy, fit and sensible lifestyle [http://www.norgeshelsa.no/norgeshelsaen/] against the connotations of smoke-filled dive bars and drunkenness that often feature as motifs in Waits' music - perhaps in particular early albums like "Heartattack and Vine", "The Heart of Saturday Night" and " Closing Time". Another, unofficial name is Til fots over Grønland (Eng. "On foot across Greenland") - also a pun, this one on the name of the Grønland district of Old Oslo in which most of the places along the route can be found, the Norwegian name for Greenland being the same as for the district. The motto of the Tom Waits Run is in Norwegian Fra ruin til Fiasco (Eng. "From ruin to Fiasco"), referring to the starting point at the ruins of the St. Mary Church in the Medieval Park and the endpoint at Café Fiasco, respectively.

It is not known whether the notoriety of The Tom Waits Run was a determining factor in the decision to rename the Grete Waitz run.

Route

The route is a set, but yearly variable, list of bars and pubs, including the endpoint at Café Fiasco. Those who are considered fit are so-called "brown places", bars and pubs that feature aged clientele, inexpensive beer and wood furniture stained by cigarette smoke. An English language equivalent could be dive bar. In total, the number of places amounts to around 20, with the figure sometimes given as high as 30 (the 2006 count was 18), making the Tom Waits run difficult to finish due to the high amount of alcoholic beverages consumed even if each participant only consumes one unit at each stop.

Rules

No set rules are enforced, as the run is more of a social event. When asked by a Norwegian journalist as to who the winners were, the reply from one participant was "Winners? No, here, we're all losers!". Participants are not forced to finish, and those who choose to linger or take an early, much-needed finish, are not frowned upon. There are no known trophies for finishing the run aside from awe and dubious honour.

References

[http://www.cbov.net/Kilden27.pdf A Norwegian article (page 11)] , from a publication by CB-Ølets Venner (Eng. "Friends of the Christiansand Brewery Beer") detailing the proceedings of the 2003 Kristiansand run

[http://www.norgeshelsa.no/norgeshelsaen/ Statistics in English from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health]

External links

* [http://www.kultureliten.no/tom_waits_mm.htm A description (in Norwegian) of the 2006 Tom Waits run, with pictures]
* [http://www.printfection.com/t-shirtheaven/Tom-Waits-T-Shirts-for-2008/_s_188046 Tom Waits t-shirts]