Finisher medals are ruining this great country. It’s not necessarily the medals themselves, but what they represent. The medals just seem to reinforce the notion that the act of finishing is good enough. A good friend of mine once told me, “It’s all outfits and finisher medals these days,” and sadly he was dead on with his analysis. There’s something very wrong with that.

That’s a very brief teaser from my article in the soon-to-be-released next issue of Level Renner. It’s a tongue-in-cheek analysis of how the race day environment seems to have changed as the popularity of the sport has increased.

Enough of the teasing. The big news is I’M BACK BABY! Did you miss me? Be honest. I can handle it. I meant to send post cards to all of you, but then realized two things: 1.) no one really wants to read about how great your vacation is while they’re stuck at work and 2.) taking the time to send a few hundred postcards would be a quick way to end my marriage before it really started. So…no postcards.

A lot happened while I was gone, and the rest of the Level crew did a great job of keeping up with it. Kevin did an especially good job of cranking out the Negative Splits segments.

In case you’re curious as to what I’ve been up to, here’s the run down:

I’m married now. In case you haven’t heard that 100 times already here.

I tried running for about 200 meters barefoot on the beach during my honeymoon. I didn’t feel awful, but didn’t feel good either. My wife appeared to be recording it. I haven’t seen proof of it, which leads me to believe that I looked terrible and she destroyed it.

Speaking of honeymoon, it was good. Things of note:

1.) Conch is my new favorite food. It’s quite popular down there and that might be the biggest thing I’ll miss from Turks & Caicos (besides the rum punch).

2.) I survived two encounters with barracudas. I saw the first one in a group, and it scared easily. The second time I was by myself and in somewhat murky waters (murky by their standards). It was big, and didn’t scare easily. We both kind of stared each other down, then I decided it was time to get out of there. My hip feels so shitty that it was on the verge of cramping up completely just from kicking around. Add in the fact that I sort of resemble a bucket of chum in the water (not a natural swimmer by any means), and I probably looked like an easy meal to the ‘cuda.

3.) Island time is taken to a whole new level down there. They only get like three flights per day as far as we could tell, and airport related businesses were only open as necessary. We found that out the hard way when it came time to return the rental car just before our flight and the rental office was closed. Not only was it closed, but their parking lot was gated and locked and their phones were off. There also wasn’t a drop-off for it at the airport. So I did what any rational person would do: I locked the keys inside the car in the airport parking lot and then left the country. I hope I’m not on the hook for a car…we’re keeping our fingers crossed on that one. (NOTE: I did speak to the agency after we returned, I think it’s all set…)

4.) Driving on the left side of the road in a car where the driver is sitting on the right side is quite the adventure. It’s even more exciting when every intersection is a rotary.

Now it’s time to get back to business as usual. Also time to get healed; I’m probably headed for hip surgery to finally fix what’s ailing me. Enough of the bad news, though. I’m excited to be back on the beat and look forward to all the things that we have in store for Level Legion. Stay tuned for some BAA 10k coverage coming real soon.

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