The green shorts are very short. The short shorts are very green. Either way you look at them, they are odd. When viewed on my legs, they sharply contrast with the areas which have not been touched by direct sunlight since it was age appropriate that I be walking around without a diaper at the lake. (14, for those of you who don’t know when that would be age appropriate. [And by “lake,” I mean “nasty TVA reservoir.” {Is that redundant?}])
So this get-up is shocking in many ways, not the least of which is that the color of the shorts coordinates exactly with the color of the printing on the Asheville half-marathon tech t from 2009. Yes, I still have that shirt. It is otherwise bright yellow and imbued with permanent stank. It pains me that now, having just found a pair of shorts that go, I may have to dispense with a shirt which I never liked much before now. Of course, I have the stank at the end of a run, but as a general rule, I don’t sense it at that point. To be offended by such malodorous clothing before the run is more than I feel I should be subject to bear.
Seeing me in this outfit (complete with white visor, black water belt, and matching black shoes) is more that I think most people should be forced to witness. So I left home just after the rosy fingers of the dawn had spread their glow across the Valley of the Suwaree. Pace was not a priority so much as distance. Capping a good week of running with a good eight miles of longness seemed like a worthy goal on the day.
Ok, eight is not universally accepted as a long run. I know that. Having mailed in my registration for the Shut-In this week, I am hopeful that I will be running 17.8 miles uphill in November. 8 miles on the first weekend in August is, therefore, a good place to start. I don’t think there is much room for slacking however. Also, you should try to look like a somewhat serious runner when your shorts barely cover your ass. Good for me, most people don’t know a slow pace from a fast one when they are driving by. As long as my form looked good, everything else would take care of itself.
Actually, I’d like to think that, from a distance, stuff from my waist down doesn’t look half bad. In the spirit of sharing, I ran past the women’s prison in the hopes that they might enjoy a glimpse. Or maybe they had something better to do, like anything other than looking at the freak in the lemon-lime outfit. Just past there is the four mile point, the turn around, but a little further on is the old Black Mountain College campus. I love going there on a run, and things felt pretty good. Why not stretch 8 to 10?
A funny thing happened around mile 5: my Headsweats visor started to work. It has always done a fine job of keeping the sweat out of my eyes, but it actually was using the sweat to do what sweat does — cool the human body. In addition, the shorts were totally soaked and flapping around at the back. My ass cheeks were actually a tiny bit chilly. In addition to being more information than you needed, that sensation was welcome on a moderately warm, fairly humid morning when the water supply was running a bit low.
The shorts had also worked their way to a position which still covered my dignity but shielded little else. The viscosity of sweat gives thighs a deceptively smooth path to travel against one another. Later, when you are in the shower and the soapy water hits that tender skin, you will know that Body Glide is your friend. For now, however, Euracin will have to be mine.
The return trip started to get dicey with about two and a half miles yet to go. The water was all gone, and there were no places to refill. The cloud cover which had kept Apollo’s rays off the o’fro was starting to break up. There were more people who were likely to know me driving on the roads. It was time to get home. As I walked in, my Sweet Lady asked how the run was and said of the new shorts, “They’re … short.” I added that they were green.