A quick word of caution for marathoners
Those of you who know me personally or read this blog regularly can probably guess I’m not much of a runner. Unless of course the ice cream truck is driving down the street, am I right Fatties?! Haha no but my blood sugar is a concern.
Anyways, the point is I don’t run. Just don’t really have the body type for it. I’ve always been more of a “try to max out the weight on the tricep pulldown machine then hear a scary crack in your neck” kinda guy. I tried jogging once last summer on a whim but chose the literal hottest day in like 20 years in Massachusetts — got about a mile in, pulled the shit out of my hammy, limped back to my house and one-touched half a gallon of water. Haven’t thrown on the running shoes since. An unfortunate reality for both my health and wallet, as I own 5 pairs of running shoes for solely steez purposes.
With all that in mind, the Boston Marathon occurred this past Monday. As it is a day devoted to pushing the upper limit of an activity I hate/am bad at, it’s generally not something I pay a lot of mind to. I’m not jealous of distance runners — I actually find them quite impressive — it’s just not my personal cup of tea. I do slightly question why people aspire to achieve a feat that caused the first guy who did it to die, but live and let live.
If you ran the Marathon, congratulations on a phenomenal accomplishment and for raising thousands of dollars to a surely worthwhile cause. No shade at all and nothing but respect and slight bewilderment from me for people who dedicate themselves to achieving something like that. I have friends who ran it this year and in previous years and I’m proud as heck of them.
Having said all that, I have a word of caution to marathoners: stop wearing your marathon shit.
Everyone who has gone outside the past two days in Boston has seen someone or, more likely, many someones wearing the marathon jacket and participant medal. And that’s fine right after you run. But if you’re still wearing it, you’re kind of an asshole. Again, no shade. You trained hard and accomplished something. But that was two days ago. Now you’re just showing off. Here’s the acceptable timeline for donning marathon decor:
Marathon Monday — Of course! Wear the jacket and medal with pride, you earned it. Pour a shot off it like an ice luge I don’t care, it’s your day! Put some beers on ice and some ice on your legs haha.
Tuesday — Nice, still got the jacket on huh…did you clean it haha? You know cause you ran like 26 miles then immediately threw that jacket on so it probably doesn’t smell great. Maybe like shower then put the jacket on next time. Oh and look at that, you’re still rocking the medal. That’s cool, that’s cool. Probably just the jacket would be fine. Kind of weird to wake up and put a medal on like it’s a normal part of your wardrobe, right? Whatever though, you earned it.
Wednesday — Cool, you went for a really long jog. Nobody gives a shit. Put a suit on and get to work Forrest Gump.
Wearing the jacket the day after is fine. It’s kind of like when your team wins the Super Bowl and you wear the jersey the next day. You get the one day to be better than everyone else. The medal is pushing it on day two. Once you take a medal off you don’t have much reason to put it back on. Day three you gotta cut that shit out entirely and get back to real life.
I do the Pan-Mass every year, which is a lesser accomplishment solely by virtue of the fact that I’m capable of doing it. But when I finish the race, I go home, wring about a quart of sweat out of my jersey, dump four bags of ice in my bathtub, then lie there for 3 hours and desperately try to restore my electrolyte balance before I die. That’s it. I put the jerseys in a little case for my own sake and never speak of it again.
So marathoners, congratulations. Great achievement and I’m proud of you for setting a goal and hitting it. Now kindly shut up about it forever.
PS. I saw a couple girls jogging in the North End on Monday. You can’t do casual running on the same day as a marathon. That’d be like me going into Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen and using an Easy-bake Oven. Fucking use your head.
