The Hunted

I’m not one for purchasing race photos anymore. For the first couple of marathons, I bought a few of the official photos and now they’ve disappeared into a drawer next to the race medals never to be seen again. When I’m 80 and dealing with bad knees and blood in my urine, I’ll probably take a look at them and sigh wistfully. Then, I’ll look at my withered testes and sigh wistfully again.

Besides, as some of you have pointed out, I wear pretty much the same outfit in every race. It’s awfully hard to distinguish one race from the next when I’m wearing either my red race shirt or blue race shirt and dark blue shorts, with a back drop of bucolic Midwestern charm, in every single photo over the past four years.

I understand the desire to buy the photos – as I said, I have a few myself – because it captures a moment in time and helps to illustrate a story or refresh a memory. It’s your own little souvenir, or monument, of the accomplishment. Or, you might think you just look really cool Schooling Some Fools and want to submit it as evidence for doubtful friends.

Instead of sinking money into race pictures, I’ve erected an actual monument to, well, me. I had a full size statue commissioned to stand at my front door. It’s me wearing my traditional race clothes, with my left foot on a basketball, my left arm flexing skyward displaying my 22 inch gun, my right hand holds a book (The Collected Works of James Joyce), and I’m viewing the book with a sorta bemused, contemplative scholarly stare as if James Joyce couldn’t possible write anything I couldn’t decipher. Mrs. Nitmos and the kids are groveling on the ground and clutching my powerful right leg, arms extended, reaching up towards me as if a simple glance from me would carry their souls to heaven. It’s simple, powerful, classy and understated. It was very expensive but I think it really spruces up the outside of my mobile home. My neighbors, ten feet to my right and left, are extremely jealous. I hear them mocking it every night through their paper thin walls (unless there is a tornado in progress drowning out their envy.)

However, the recent Bayshore 10k photos are a little different than most. They revealed an actual story to tell. I was surprised to see a series of photos showing me locked in a Duel in the Mid Morning Partly Cloudy Sky with a fellow age grouper. I spent all day* working away in MS Paint to bring you this pictorial tour of my last race. Enjoy.

We pick up our tale somewhere after mile marker 5. It’s time for the finishing kick! Though I did not know it at the time, the person in the photo below is in my age group. He stands between me and First Loser (I would ultimately finish second in my age group.)

Note: He did not have a circular purple painted face. His image has been modified to protect his shame.

Notice the intimidation at play here. Could I possibly get any closer? Are we Siamese runners joined by the…well, never mind. I like to play an asshole on this blog but – could it be – am I actually a real life asshole on the race course also? Jeez Louise, give this guy some room. There’s a whole open road here…

I am hunting him down. I, the lion, am tracking my antelope. The flinging sweat that almost certainly is landing in my gaping mouth obviously does not dissuade me. (Remember, I had copious amounts of nose mucous that day so I was forced to be a 100% Mouth Breather for the race.) Can you hear my foot steps? That’s the sound of second place getting ready to pass you by.

What’s the deal? Take a closer look at these three preceding pictures. Note the positions of our arms and legs. Are we…synchronized running? Or am I mocking him by copying his exact movements directly behind him? Look carefully at my expression in the picture above. Looks like some mocking going on doesn’t it? I seem to be saying “Der, der look at me running too slow to hold on to second place, dum di di der der.”

And I was.

Unfortunately, we left the view of the cameras before my glory/his shame could be recorded as I devoured my antelope. I imagine it looked something like this:

Stomach full of prey, I bounded to the finish searching…searching for the first place and fastest, antelope. I could not find him amongst the thicket of runners. His race shirt and sweat patterns allowed him to blend in with other age groups. So I growled to the finish content with only one race day kill.

Those were some cool race photos. In comparison, they almost make my lawn statue seem needlessly braggadocios.

Almost.

Happy trails.

* If you define “all day” as “20 minutes.”

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Good night and good luck to Marcy at I Signed Up For This?!?