What a freak

The holidays: a time for festive get-togethers, good cheer and constant reminders that I am just not normal. It all started when I had lunch with Sarah Pease before she left for winter break. She so very kindly gave me an awesome tree ornament that said "Marathon Freak" on it. As the comedian says, "here's your sign."

This message of freakishness is reinforced more during the holidays than at other times because my lifestyle choices fly in the face of the traditional gluttony and sloth that surround this holy season. The holidays fall during the coldest season of the year, therefor further illuminating the oddness of my running obsession. When the weatherman is telling everyone to stay inside, I am putting on thin spandex and two pairs of gloves while worrying about getting overheated.

It is also a time when you see people you haven't seen in awhile, so they've apparently forgotten last year's answers to their questions of "How much do you run each day?" "When are you going to the Olympics?" and my personal favorite, "How fast can you run a mile?" The best is when people have a had a few too many, so they ask me these same questions twice in one night, except usually the second time around they'll slip in a story about their junior high long jump heroics or their cousin in Kansas who is a great runner too.

If I had a dime for every person at my dad's Christmas party, which he calls the "Ho Ho Ho Ho-down," who encouraged me to have another drink and a cookie because I looked "thin," I could have afforded Christmas presents for the whole neighborhood. If only those people could see the girls I've seen at meets whose buns won't stay on because their waists are smaller than the spandex constricts, then they would know what skinny really is!

While most families sat on their couches, opened presents and ate breakfast Christmas morning, I was trotting through town on empty roads, listening to "Run Run Rudolph" on my iPod for inspiration.

It also hit me later that day that most all of my Christmas presents related to running - a plane ticket to a race, a stationary bike trainer so I can cross train, a book about Bill Bowerman, even the hair ties my dad, er, I mean Santa, put in my stocking are for running! Also, a majority of the gifts I gave to others came from a running store! This is surely not normal. So yes, perhaps I am a freak, but anything else would just be boring!