Image via WikipediaLong ago I considered running the Mickelson Trail Marathon. It sounded like a good race to me, and besides, I hadn't run a regular marathon in years; but running it would have required me to travel from Arizona to South Dakota.When I proposed the idea to Suzy, her initial reaction was: "It seems like a lot of trouble and expense just so you can run only four or five hours." Because I knew exactly what she meant, I just started to laugh, then so did she, as she quickly caught on to the double meaning of what she'd said.
Doubtless some non-running spouses are of the opinion that spending time and money traveling to races constitutes a questionable use of resources that could be better used in another way, which in some cases may be true. Not Suzy. What she meant was that it's not worth the cost for me to travel to any race that will take me less than 24 hours to finish, preferably a whole lot longer, so I get more miles and hours per dollar for the experience. And that way she gets more shopping and sightseeing time. She's an economist.
The result of that discussion was that I scrubbed my plans to run the Mickelson Trail Marathon, and instead ran the Leanhorse 100-mile trail race a few years later, which is also run on the Mickelson Trail, albeit on a different part of it. Despite my almost-made-it DNF, I got to mile 96 in 28 hours before falling down in the bushes twice in twenty yards. Therefore, I definitely got almost my money's worth out of that trip. Suzy loved it, too, because she spent the race afternoon getting a massage in town.
3 comments:
Some destinations are worth going to whether regardless of the race, or even if there isn't a race. The Black Hills is one of those destinations.
For the Boulder 24hr race we had gotten a hotel reservation for my wife since I'd be on the track for 24 hours. When we got there we found there were no rooms available, except the 'Presidental Suite'. It normally cost $250 per night and because of the reservation they had to give it to us for $50. It was several rooms including a full kitchen, conference room and separate shower and the largest tub I'd ever seen.
Several times during the night I called Ellen to bring me clean socks or food or warmer clothes. Each time she showed up with wet hair because she was essentially living in that tub while I was running through the night.
Same as Suzi, Ellen loved this race.
kevin
Of course you can turn your non-running spouse into a runner, as I have - but then WHO HOLDS THE BAG OF STUFF????
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