First Half Marathon

Two people called me insane yesterday. Both were experienced runners. Why did they call me insane? Because yesterday I ran my first half marathon. Nothing official, just some friends running together, but I did indeed run 13.1 miles (actually 13.2). Prior to yesterday, my longest run was seven miles. Apparently that’s a big jump to make.

Insane or not, it was awesome. We ran at the Conewago Trail, so it was mostly shady and very flat, as opposed to the sunny, hot, and hilly routes I typically run near my house.

The only downside was that I did a really good Andy Bernard impression. For those that don’t get the reference, I’ll explain. Please pardon the story as it’s a bit off color, but not gross or offensive.

Sometimes when I run, I get some chafing. In other words, my nipples get sore. It happened to me at the beach the first time I ran six miles, and my next few runs were extremely uncomfortable. I switched from regular cotton t-shirts to real running shirts, and that helped a lot.

Until yesterday.

Around the ten mile mark, I started to feel a bit sore in the nipular area. I thought about finishing my run shirtless, but to be honest, I’m still pretty self-conscious about my appearance. There’s still a lot of jiggling.

Anyway, I finished the run and met up with the four others who finished before me (and for the record, three of them only did ten miles). My buddy Steve looked at me and started to snicker.

“Do your nipples hurt?” he asked.

Surprised that he had ascertained this information, I nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Dude, look down!” he laughed.

Looked down and saw the blood. All the way down to my waist. As much as it hurt, I had to laugh. Somehow I had run somewhere around three miles without noticing the blood.

Steve, sensitive fellow that he is, whipped out his Android phone and shouted, “This is going on Twitter!” He snapped my picture and posted it.

And here, for posterity, is the picture.