Rump Shaker

I consider myself fortunate that I have a husband with whom I share so much in common with. We're both civil engineers, so we can share work stories, we both love to drink beer, work on our house, and we both like to run. But sometimes togetherness goes too far.

Before we even started trail running or ultras, we had decided our runs together had to be limited. Different paces and different goals made for some unpleasant runs. We used to run at the same time, just different routes. If we ran together, it was usually because I had a tempo run and he had a recovery run scheduled.

Once we started running longer distances, we started running together again. When you're out in the woods for 4+ hours at a time, your spouse should be welcome company, right? Well... It reminded me why we didn't run together. John runs by his Garmin, I run by my body. Usually, half the run was spent by "You're going to fast, you're going to blow up" or "This pace is too slow, it screws up my stride." But my all-time favorite was a comment he'd make while I was leading and usually after he had stumbled or tripped: "Your legs are so muddy I can't see the trail!"

Huh??

So the Limited Runs Rule was reinstated. We agreed upon running together every 6-8 weeks. John doesn't really like people, anyway. I've been doing a lot of running with KT and MO, besides the Thursday night Nerds run and solo recovery runs.

But recently we made a discovery as to why we have the Limited Runs Rule. John said after a Thursday night run, he realized why he couldn't run behind me and always seemed to trip. My ass blocks his line of sight. Those were his exact words: "Your ass blocks my line of sight." To which I promptly replied "On behalf of my ass, I apologize. And that is exactly why my ass and I don't want to run with you."

Now for the gentlemen that may be reading, you should never tell a woman that her ass blocks your line of sight, no matter how large or small the rear end in question may be. A better way for him to have said that would have been "I can't follow you because I just can't take my eyes off your behind and that's why I trip all the time." No damage done. But "Your ass blocks my line of sight" implies that maybe you should be wearing a WIDE LOAD sign on your posterior.

So of course, after this conversation I became a little self conscious of my bum. Do I need a WIDE LOAD sign on my rump? Does it get in the way of other runners? I've lead the Thursday night run on a number of occasions; has my butt been the cause of trail mishaps that I wasn't even aware of? Maybe I could use this to my advantage during races, I'd just have to position myself at the front of the pack and I could box out my competition. Those skinny runner girls won't know what hit 'em! I got junk in my trunk and I'm not afraid to use it!

My ass and I have politely decided to retreat to the back of the pack on group runs and appropriately play the caboose. Heaven forbid my bottom causes other runners undue stress.

For the record: My ass is a size 6 and has covered more miles than I can count. I also used 10 different words for "butt". Any other suggestions?