When I was your age, young man

When I ran my first trail I was wearing cotton gym shorts, a jockstrap, and a pair of low cut Keds. It wasn't a case of not wanting high-tech running equipment - there wasn't any.

It was 1970 and I was working for a Satellite Communications company on Guam, had celebrated my 26th birthday with a bottle of $250 Cognac, and was nursing the mother of all hangovers when I looked out my apartment window and saw a group of men working on the University of Guam track (a generous description). They were attempting to pull a rake by hand. This rake was the width of the track and its tines were about two feet apart... They were attempting to mark lanes - unsuccessfully. I went downstairs, hopped into my little Honda N600, drove onto the track, and told them to tie the rake to my bumper. With three men standing on the rake and me behind the wheel we had those lanes marked in less than five minutes.

"So - what's going on? I asked"

"We're putting on a track meet," said the officious gentleman, who I later learned had a photographic memory when it came to remembering who ran what race and in what time.

When I asked Joe Lawton if anyone could run he assured me that it was okay, but by the way he was looking at my leather sandals I'm sure he thought the question rhetorical. I ran the mile in six minutes, came in last, and immediately relieved myself of about $175 worth of Napoleons best. That was my introduction to organized running, and on Guam of all places. It was also my introduction to jock-itch, fungus infections, and gym cloths that never quite dried between runs.

Joe it turned out lived only a quarter mile from me but because we were separated by jungle it might as well have been a hundred miles - or so I thought. The morning after the track meet, Joe stood at my front door at 6 am and suggested we go for a run.... through the jungle.

I enjoyed the run though it was a little frightening... If Joe and I were to become separated I might have spent years in the tangen-tangen trying to find a path to civilization (or semblance thereof). Running the jungle became a daily morning ritual with me jogging over to Joe's Quansit Hut then the two of us doing a six mile loop around the Navy golf course. It took a year for me to be able to keep up with Joe for the entire run... but, one day I had to stop - the chaffing between my legs was so bad I was bleeding. I had given up the jock and had switched to briefs a few weeks before hoping that they wouldn't be as irritating.

Joe started laughing - "Don't you chaffe," I asked.

"Not since I started wearing Jenny's undies," he replied. He explained that he had taken a pair of his wife's nylon panties and found that they gave him exceptional support and didn't irritate... Being of the Macho generation, I guffawed and made a politically incorrect remark about his sexual preferences.

"You ought to try it," he said.

"Don't you think Jenny might object," I replied.

That evening while my wife was away I went into her lingerie drawer and pulled out what appeared to be her largest pair of panties... I avoided the white lace ones she wore as a signal that someone was going to get lucky! But that's another story for another blog. I slipped the pastel blue bikini on and immediately fantasized someone was coming to the front door. It was the fastest I had ever removed a pair of ladies undies in my life (wink-wink). False alarm... I pulled them back on and walked around. Joe was right - they didn't chaffe... plus, I liked the visual.

The next morning I put on Margo's undies and my gym shorts and met Joe on the trail...

"Well," asked Joe. "Did you bag a pair of her drawers?"

"Uh-huh," I replied. And, I ain't giving them back. But, if I fall and get taken to the hospital and they laugh at me, I'm going to hunt you down and kick your butt."

Now, thirty-eight years later I pull on a pair of Race Ready running shorts (with matching liner) and I don't have to wonder which way the little bow goes...