she’s pregnant!

  This brown-haired chick that I saw a few times at Lake Murray* around October last year running a 7 min/mile pace, I saw her again today. She’s pregnant.  And running. 

  How does she do that, run? She ran as though her big belly didn’t matter. She ran as though her life depended on it, as though her baby’s depended on it. Not as fast as her normal pace — about a minute and a half slower — but she’s running. I thought about going up to her to touch the thing, you know, poke her belly to make sure it wasn’t pillow or something else.   But here’s the bummer: I got “chicked”.  Y’all dudes out there, y’all know what that means right? For those who don’t, it means a dude getting passed, overpowered, or beaten, by a female in a race.  That wasn’t a race really — she just made sure I felt she was in one. And won.  I’ve been chicked quite a few times on the road bike. Especially out on the hills here in SD. With them chicks being lighter and all, and with the hi-tech super light carbon-fiber, titanium, what-have-you, expensive bikes (my excuses). Sure, why not. But running?   

 So on this one hill with a decent gradient, I’m plodding, laboring, huffing and puffing. My heart is about to detonate so I’m slowing down about a hundred meters before the top. Then I hear flapping sound of rubber shoes behind me and so I look behind.  Pregnant runner from out of nowhere with a belly soo out there, doing her tiny-little-but-crazy-fast-leg-turnover pace. I’m like, what the…!  She gets alongside me, then ahead of me, and then way ahead of me.  Oh, it felt like there’s a monster rain cloud unloading directly on top me at that moment.

  I got chicked. By a “pregnant chick”! 

  I must be in a very bad shape. Believe me, I spent half an hour at the parking area agonizing over whether or not I’m going to try and qualify for Boston. For the first time in my life the words “boston marathon” bother me a lot.  

 *my usual spot for long runs on my days off other than sundays. I’m with da kid on such days.  The run happens in between dropping off da kid  at school and picking him up later. I also go there to fly fish, or just fish.