St. Patty’s Day Suds Run 1980 Key West
On March 16, Key West had its Second Annual St. Patrick’s Day Suds Run. There were over 300 contestants and hundreds more who came in somewhere along the way. I think I speak for all of those people in thanking the following bars for their help: The Original Raw Bar, Pepe’s Café, the Pier House, Captain Hornblower’s, Sloppy Joe’s, Rick’s Café Americain, Durty Harry’s, The Bull, The Green Parrot, and the Sandcastle. It was a blast.
The Sunday of the Run dawned early, and I dragged myself from bed, then downed several beers for practice. I stumbled from my apartment and got to the race’s starting point, the Raw Bar, at ten. Some of the contestants were already hanging around. In their special running shoes and gym shorts they looked like serious contenders, and I stared down at my beer belly and flip-flops and knew any hope of winning was over. I ambled dejectedly over to Pepe’s, where I chowed down on a couple of pork chops to ease my troubled mind. My friend Wahoo (also known as "Key West’s Finest Mutation”) asked why I was worried about winning.
"I’m just trying to survive it,” he said. He was right, of course.
Back at the Raw Bar a crowd was gathering, and people were getting restless for action. At noon the bar opened and as the beer began to flow the tension eased. Finally at one o’clock, Rick Dostal, the race organizer, started registration. I happened to be standing in the right place at the right time, and the herds of aspiring drunks pushed me right up to the table, where I got a blurred number that looked meaningless.
I wandered around looking for a beer, but I was broke, and the only place that would give me credit was the Sandcastle at the race’s endpoint. My thirst was great, and it was apparent that the race would be slow to start, so I made tracks. When I got to the Sandcastle, Curly McGinn, the owner, was standing out front, and he grabbed me and hustled me inside.
"We need a time keeper,” he said. "You look like one. Are you drunk yet?”
"Stone sober,” I lied.
"Fine. Here’s the sheet and the watch. Go out there and drink up, but when they get here be damn accurate.”
"Where’s the beer?” I said.
A half hour later I was sitting by a couple of kegs and fiddling with a pencil.
"This isn’t how I planned to cover this race,” I said.
"Don’t worry,” Curly answered. "You’ve got a great view of it. Just sit back, ‘cause every runner’s gonna have to come to you.” He was right. Moments later Martin, last year’s winner, came charging at me. He stopped, chugged a beer, I wrote his time, then he puked his guts out. He was unaffected by the process and picked up a beer and began drinking again.
The rest of the day was madness as hundreds of overworked drunks with high blood pressure crowded the Sandcastle lot. Runners slammed into the table upsetting beers and bowls of Irish Stew as they shouted their numbers. Some passed out, some got crazy, and most of them puked. At about six I gave up my job and went in the bar. It was full of hot, sweaty athletes who were dumping as much beer and they could into their pumped-out alcohol streams. If there was any sobriety left in me it went down the tubes right then.
Still thinking like a writer I searched for quotes. I talked with Rick Dostal, Wendy of the Sandcastle, and others who played important parts in the race, but the quotes were worthless because words couldn’t do the job. As Wahoo had said, it was a matter of survival, and we had all survived one of the best times we had ever had. The run got flushed down the toilet in the remnants of thousands of beers, but for those of us who were part of it the memories will survive, at least until next year’s debacle.
By Peter Heyrman
