In Which My Genitals Go to the Track

Here's a fun game: drink every time I use a euphemism for vagina in the text below. Drink twice for every time I use "vagina" outright. You're up to 4 already...

Before I get started with my lady parts (+1) exercising, I should probably touch upon why I was at the track tonight at all, given that I do speed work on Wednesdays and today is Tuesday. The calendar may indicate that it is spring. And maybe you were even convinced after that rogue 70 degree day last week. But you, and the calendar, are wrong. And tomorrow, when I would ordinarily be at the track, Gotham City will be blanketed with a "wintry mix." That is a precipitation type that has its corresponding season right in the name. Clearly, it is not spring. Furthermore, running on the track during a wintry mix is miserable (I assume. Or think I remember from my days of high school indoor track, which was practiced outdoors at my school most days). Whereas running on the treadmill, while brutal once you've been teased with 70 degree days, is a skill I've honed living in a city whose weather sucks for much of the year. So instead of taking a leisurely 6 miler tonight and facing 800s either indoors or in a wintry mix tomorrow, I swapped the two workouts and took myself to the track after work.

Now, despite the fact that I've just spent a paragraph detailing how it is NOT spring in New York, it IS almost spring racing season (26.2 days until Boston, according to the BAA - get it?!). So in order to 1) keep myself occupied in the evenings when I would ordinarily be drinking, and 2) give myself enough time to properly wear-test my race day gear, I've begun the process of selecting my Boston ensemble.

Let me stop there. I don't strive for color coordination or "OMG totes adorbs 143 my bff!!!!" running gear. I have lots of wicking tech shirts and well-worn running shorts and non-chafing socks in my arsenal of apparel. But I do think it helps get you (or me, at any rate) in the racing mindset to have a special race day outfit that makes you feel like a bad ass. Enter the short short.

(Here comes the drinking part).

I first started wearing short shorts last summer when it was 437,000 degrees in New York and it was all I could do not to writhe naked in heat-induced dementia before I even set out for my run. In all seriousness, I commuted to work in one set of clothes, then had to change entirely when I got to my office because I'd sweat through outfit number 1. I'm pretty. So anyway, in an effort to wear as little as possible, I started wearing short shorts running. Not only did they keep me cool, but they kept me cool. Like, I feel like a bad ass, cool. And bad assedness is precisely what one wants to conjure when going for an aggressive PR at the Big Dance of the marathoning world. Notice, I said "bad ass," and not "bad bajunafish" (+1, and you can thank my sister for adding that term to my lexicon).

So, in my effort to find a suitable and suitably bad ass racing outfit, I picked up a few pairs of shorts and a few singlets one evening this week (the iPad would like to autocorrect "singlets" to "winglet," which I think could be a new euphemism for vagina. +3 for that sentence). Among the shorts were a pair from Under Armor that were similar to a pair I own and like, but which are made of a scratchy fabric. Rejoice! This new pair were made of a soft Lycra-y material (if ever there were foreshadowing of wardrobe malfunctions, "Lycra-y" is it). In the store, they looked normal and felt great. I even jogged in place in the dressing room. I swear.

So this morning, I packed my bag with precisely one pair of bottoms, these being the aforementioned Lycra-y shorts, and come quitting time, excused myself to change in the bathroom. "Well these are mighty short for the office," I thought, "but it's not as though you can see The Stuff That Monologues Are Made Of" (+1, and that was a good one).

I walked back from the ladies' bathroom to my desk and was acutely aware as more and more of my ass cheeks were revealed with each step I took. My desk is approximately 200 meters from the bathroom. My scheduled workout with 8x800 meters, plus 8x400 meter recoveries, plus 2 miles each warm up and cool down. I started to get worried.

I headed outside and felt the non-spring breeze in my face. And in my Beautiful Flower (+1, and the feeling that phrase elicits in me is why I dislike feminists. Ew). I started running East toward the Hudson and the East 6th St track, garnering or imagining many stares from the rush hour crowd. At least they'd be more forgiving of me and my camel toe (+1) at the track, where surely other women were scantily clad in the name of athleticism.

Not so much. Since it's not really feeling very spring like, everyone else at the track seemed to be wearing long tights, hoodies, gloves, and generally not "shorts" that cover less than some thongs. "Let's just get this over with."

After the first 800, I was nearly positive I should have gotten a bikini wax for the occasion. But on the plus side, my pace was pretty solid. I picked my frontal wedgie, temporarily hiding my goat knuckle (+1, and that's the agrarian cousin of the camel toe), and took off for my second 800.

The cycle continued much like this for all eight 800s. I ran. I tried to casually swipe my hand in front of my crotch to determine precisely how much of my meat wallet (+1, and that is BY FAR the funniest, and I'm sorry Mom and Dad) was exposed. I adjusted the meager amount of fabric. I ran again. Thank God it started to get dark after the fifth repeat.

So here's the thing: these were my best 800s ever. My splits were 3:14, 3:11, 3:09, 3:14, 3:16, 3:12, 3:12, 3:10. Fast. Evenly paced. And, on average 18 seconds ahead of where I need them to be. That's crazy. I think the fish taco (+1) shorts are magic!

So now I'm torn: do I risk exposing all of Boston to my hatchet wound (+1) in the hopes of running 3:30 and PRing next month, or for the sake of the physical safety and emotional well-being of my fellow marathoners, do I wear non-bearded-clam (+1) exposing bottoms? The short shorts work for my idol, Kara Goucher. But Kara Goucher will finish an hour before I do, and can hurry up and put real pants on. Also SHE'S KARA GOUCHER.

Well I don't know why I'm even bothering to ask you, since surely you're black out drunk after participating in my little drinking game. And if you aren't, you ought to be, because some of those vagina (+2) euphemisms are truly horrifying. And hilarious. God, being a middle school boy must be so much fun.