To be honest, I was most worried about my nipples bleeding. I can’t think of anything worse. Wait, who am I kidding? I can think of 1,009 worse fates than bleeding nipples.
Let’s put it this way. When it comes to body parts, there are only four I desire to see bleeding less than my nipples: my eyes (obviously), my hair (that would just be weird), and, of course, my doughnut holder and coin purse.
I’m very protective of my nipples. I don’t even call them nipples, because that’s a demeaning term laced with unfair stereotypes. I call them pepperonis. Edibility makes them more human, I think.
But my pepperonis were the last parts I should have been worried about. After all, I was running a marathon. OK, not a marathon per se (sorry, just always wanted to use “per se”), but a half-marathon. A measly “half.” What housewives run. It’s like enlisting in the military … and joining the Coast Guard. I’m sure real marathoners make fun of half-marathoners.
“Ya know, Gary, I don’t mind those cute 5Kers, but the half-marathoners are like a pair of Saucony tights. They rub me the wrong way.”
“Great take, Bruce. They never mention the “half” part of the marathon. By the way, how’s your glycogen level?”
(Whenever I’m forced to assign strangers—real or make-believe—a name, they tend to be horribly ordinary.)
I’m that guy. I drop the “half” part. I’ll even kill the hyphen. It’s verbiage’s fault. If it’s half the race, it should be called “mara.”
Thus, to save breath and word count, my pepperonis and I participated in (suffered through) a “marathon.” I would later discover that there exists a pant-load of maladies that can befall you in a “marathon,” which I’ve included and divided into categories.
1. Death
2. Stuff that brings you closer to death (hypothermia, hyperthermia, dehydration, 5-minute miles)
3. Injuries that prevent you from reaching categories 1 and 2, but also prevent you from completing said marathon (shin splints, stress fractures, projectile vomiting)
4. Annoying problems that you don’t notice if you’ve ever set foot inside categories 1, 2, and 3, especially 1 (bleeding nipples).
Thankfully, my issues rested entirely inside category 4. For instance, upon completion of the marathon (spoiler alert!) I had a side “stitch” that extended up to my ear, my left arm shook every time I made a fist, my knees wouldn’t bend, and two toenails turned black and eventually fell off. But, I was only illogically concerned with my Under Armour shirt turning into a razor blade around mile 10 and doing nothing but dicing pepperonis the final 3.1 miles of the race.
You would think I would know better. I’ve always run distance. Well, I should put distance in quotations. “Distance.” There. “Distance” once equaled a two-mile: otherwise known as what you run in high school when you’re not fast. Or strong.
Track Coach: “Oh shit, Shaffer, you are slow. Have I got just the races for you.”
At a high school with an enrollment of about 85, you’re not really the best at “distance” as much as you’re the worst at everything else. I would’ve loved to compete in the 200-meter dash; I just couldn’t. Conversely, those 200-meter runners would’ve likely run faster than me in the 3200 if only they had wanted to. If they had a hankering for prolonged pain. Basically, I competed in the NIT every track meet.
Long story long: Even a haunted running past full of physical anguish and subscript status could not prepare me for running a “marathon.”
But I was going to try, goddammit. I was going to take 12 weeks that could’ve been spent reading the “Twilight” series and waste them on training for a mara. I wasn’t just going to move for 13.1 miles; I was going to move at my very 32-year-old fastest. I would time it just right to where every bit of effort, muscle control, and consciousness would run out at the moment I collapsed at the finish line.
If 13.1 = race, then 13.2 = death.
If 1 hour and 40 minutes = goal time, then 1 hour and 39 minutes = death time.
This was not a good idea.
As I quickly discovered, everyone else in my ambitiously chosen pace group belonged in the pace group. Oh they could probably go about 10 minutes faster, but they realized something I apparently hadn’t: it’s a goddamned marathon.
Setting ambitious goals and doing everything you can to meet them at your first job might result in a promotion. Setting ambitious goals and doing everything you can to meet them at your first marathon might result in an exploding heart. My running mates were laughing, unzipping their fanny packs, pulling out vomit-tasting protein bars, waving to the crowd, slapping high fives with the guy they hadn’t seen since the last marathon whose name was probably Phillip. I couldn’t do that; that’s valuable energy that could be useful in staving off cardiac arrest or scurvy around mile 12. Plus, Phillip looked like a douche. But most incredulously, they were talking my soon-to-be-cramped ear off.
Randall: “Your first half?”
My mind: “Why yes, you bag o’ dicks. What gave it away? The fear in my eyes or the grass stains on the running shoes I also wore while mowing the yard yesterday.”
My words: “Bleherven …”
I was breathing harder than Carnie Wilson taking the stairs. Of course I couldn’t get a word out. But these jackasses kept wanting to make small-talk.
Chaz: “Anyone coming to see you race?”
Dennis: “How’d you train?”
Stan: “What are ya gonna do after the race?”
My mind: “Your mom.”
My mind: “By doing your mom.”
My mind: “Your … nah. Too easy.”
My words: “Schmerkenin …”
My words: “Laedoninger …”
My words: “Schlarvag …”
I should’ve been 10 minutes back with the 1:50 group just killing it with material I’d lifted from FlipCollective. But instead I was up here realizing the paralyzing fear that had lived inside of me for so long: “I am going to be in uncomfortable, sometimes excruciating pain that will only grow in intensity for a period of time longer than an airing of Letterman. And I won’t be able to fast-forward through the commercials and the guest from the zoo. I will be running the whole time.”
That kind of unhealthy anxiety can only lead to one thing: the shits.
Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve led with “the shits” over “nipple bleeding” as a shock value first paragraph designed to reel you in to a cluttered mess of conversations with people named Lyle, but fear of the shits isn’t exactly unique to marathon racing with me.
On my way to work. On a bicycle. Playing in the park. That awkward 50-mile expanse of Kansas turnpike between Emporia and El Dorado where NO SERVICES exist.
The fear is always there — in the back of my mind, at the base of my stomach. I’ve developed a physics equation that I tabulate everywhere I go involving my location, the nearest bathroom location, and my last meal from Sonic. Thus, factoring in the 10,000 runners and only a handful of Porta-Potties every two miles, I didn’t have to do much math to conclude I was a candidate to become latest guy shitting himself while finishing a “marathon” on an online FAIL poster.
So I went to the, ahem, restroom at home when I got up at 5 a.m., a rise-and-shine time that was, in itself, an effort on my part worthy of all the training. I went to the restroom on the way to the race. I went to the restroom at the race headquarters. Ten minutes before the race, I even visited a Porta-Potty. You don’t need to know any of this. I’m only retracing it to get to my next point.
In my preoccupation with my bowels, I forgot to tape my nipples.
Gasp!
The pepperonis were bouncin’ around with no constraints. To make matters worse, when I became aware of my non-pastied status, I was probably only a few miles from them being chiseled down to bloody nubs. This shirt was heavy-starched, for crying out loud! It was white! This was the worst. And it was all I could think about.
I ignored the driving rain that cut through the 40 degree temperatures and hit me in the face.
I ignored the half-dozen blisters on my feet as they formed, burst, and then formed again.
I barely found time to say “Hi” to the family who had braved the early morning cold to watch me run/jog/lumber by for a few seconds at Mile 6. To be fair, my youngest was still calling trees “Daddy” then, so I doubt any extra time spent with him would’ve planted a long-lasting memory.
I couldn’t even fully apply a sexist agenda when women would pass me. I just rationalized.
Girl in headband passing me …”She must’ve been an All-American. Probably at Oregon.”
Dark-complexion lady passing me …”Hmm, she looks South American. I’m sure she trains in high altitude.”
Woman twice my weight passing me …”Shit.”
Older woman passing me …”Bitch.”
I was so engrossed in the possibility of full-on nipple genocide that the race went much faster than I had imagined. Not real-time faster; I was a little over a minute off my goal. But in my mind, it was way faster than Letterman.
Before long, I was coughing and limping and dragging my ass across the finish line. No collapse. Death was at least a half-mile away. I couldn’t bend over to untie my shoes. And I put away eight muffins at the snack table. But overall I was in a good state of mind. Thanks to my nipples, of course.
Alas, they were fine. No bleeding. A little red. A little raw. But nothing two frozen sacks of peas couldn’t fix. If I would’ve run a marathon instead of a mara, I’m sure we would’ve had an incident.
Speaking of which, I’d hate to see Gary’s nipples.
For more from Mick, click some of the fun buttons below…
Past work on FlipCollective.com.
To follow him on Twitter.
I will never forget my first half marathon in which some skank who was talking on her cell phone passed me around mile 10. I had nothing left at that point, but her knee-high pink socks, short shorts and bikini top spurred some extra energy, and I made sure that I crossed the finish line before her.
Next you need to do a full marathon. Just think, twice the chafage!
bleeding nipples, poopy pants with it running down the legs, women mensturating down their legs, people vomitting — distance running isn’t as glamourous as it looks
Mick- As usual, this was hilarious.