Things I Lost At the Marathon

I meant to put this in the other day, but, "Oh, well."

The City of Trees Marathon was on a pretty brisk day for Boise, so I wore a t shirt over a tank top with a pair of shorts and a belted waist fanny pack for runners with a water bottle. I wore sunglasses. Woo-hoo.

I bought the fanny pack on the day before the race because I was afraid that they would not have enough water stops. That freaked me out, so I did what no marathoner is supposed to do. You are never supposed to ever change anything the day before the race. You ONLY do what has already worked for you. So...I broke the rule, and I am glad that I did. There were no bad consequences. It is really a good rule for marathoners because even wearing a different t-shirt than you normally do can cause major grief for you.

For instance, I had to buy a product at the running store called Glide, because when I put on long mileage days, just the rubbing of my tank top on my arms made very painful red welts where the skin had worn off in just one practice run. When you are repeating the same motion, over and over, you have to be careful of little things like that.

At any rate, I was happy for the extra t-shirt. It was an ugly green one that Mr. Sinta had not worn for years, so he donated it to the cause. On about mile ten, every article of clothing that I had was already soaked through with sweat, so I discarded the t-shirt. I did not want to be a trashy runner, so I gave it to a person who was directing traffic and asked them to dispose of it as I was running past. Amazingly, she assured me that she would not put it in the trash, but would donate it to charity. This is Boise's North End. They are an amazing bunch. I recycle. And I donate things to charity, but I live on the Bench. Roughly translated, that means if you hand me a sweaty t-shirt at a marathon, I am going to put it in the nearest trash can. This is not a slam on the North End. It is an observation. They are different. They care about the environment more than you care for some of your relatives.

I have had a change of heart toward the North End since I ran down Harrison Blvd. This is one of the richest streets in town. You probably don't live there unless you inherited the house, or you own quite a bit of a Fortune 500 corporation, you are a physician or you are on the board at Micron. Nevertheless, when I ran by, an old overweight solo runner who was so far back that I could not even find the trash that the pack left behind, they came out in their front yards and cheered and clapped for me. It was a very humbling and uplifting experience. I even high fived a two year old. I love you, North End!

Okay, so what did I lose? When I took off the t-shirt, I forgot that my sunglasses were on top of my head, and evidently they dropped into the street. That accounts for two losses, the shirt and the sunglasses.

The third loss is kind of gross, and if you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this and come back another day. You were warned.

When I took off my shoes at home, I could see that one of my toes looked deformed. It had a very huge blister underneath one of the toe nails. I will spare you the details, but later this month, that toenail fell off. Isn't that strange?

The positive side is that I got to wear one of my Hello Kitty band aids for a few days. I love Hello Kitty.