ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When you’re tapped to compete with your media compatriots to take on politicians in a grape stomping competition, it is your civic duty to join the battle.
What they don’t tell you is how absurdly intense the experience is.
You may walk in with a strategy — hold the handles while doing short bursts, dance around the edge of the bucket — but within seconds all semblance of planning flies out the window.
At this point, you just force your legs to move up and down as fast as possible and hope for the best while your lungs burn like you just ran a marathon.
That one minute in the bucket feels like eternity.
Eight seconds. Seven seconds. Six seconds.
Apologies to marathon runners, I know your experience is so much more punishing, and I am but a lazy-ish reporter who rarely engages in too much exercise.
Five. Four. Three.
Nevertheless, you stomp through the pain, drag yourself out of the bucket.
Two.
And pray you’ve liquified enough fruit to push your team over the edge.
One.
Between deep breaths, you take in the scene around you: Your feet are covered in grape guts and the intense fire in your legs is hard to ignore — many of us laughed, quipping that we completed our cardio for the week.
And thanks to the rallying power of our fellow media members, we were able to end the tyrannical reign of local politicians in the realm of grape stomping.
As our own Grace Oddo would say, it was a big day for us.
Let it be known that we reporters — especially us LehighValleyNews.com reporters — stomp those grapes for the people, for free, as it should be done.
Long may we remain champions.
