I am not a runner. Now, perhaps you are thinking, “But, Tragic Sandwich, your ‘About Me’ page says, ‘I am a lazy triathlete.’ How can you not be a runner?”
Simple, my friend. I pick my triathlons very carefully–sprint class, short distances, flat bike route–and I don’t run. I walk. They don’t disqualify you for walking the run portion. They just eventually close the course. Fortunately, I have always finished before that deadline.
But I am married to a runner, who comes from a family of runners. They run every day. They run in pain. They get up and run on Christmas. BEFORE opening gifts.
And they run marathons. Mr. Sandwich’s father is one of the legacy runners for the L.A. Marathon, which means that he has never missed one. In fact, he’s run somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 marathons. But Mr. Sandwich’s mother doesn’t like the idea of him running them on his own, so for the past decade and a half, Mr. Sandwich has run with him.
Last year, the day of the Marathon featured 50-degree weather and a driving rain that resembled nothing so much as a nor’easter. In L.A. Fortunately, this year the rain came a day early, and race day was just about perfect.
But I’m still glad I wasn’t running it myself.