Butts

This is my butt.  My butt in running pants.  My running pants and my running jacket are black.  I'm not sure how they turned out grey in this picture.

Again, this is me.  I had just crossed the finish line.  I ran a half marathon yesterday and it was a completely glorious, fabulous and wonderful experience.

These are my crazy, dear friends who ran the race with me.  There's me, then Wendy, Bill and his wife Lynn. We called ourselves, 'Bill and the girls'.  Lynn and Bill had run this race twice before.  This was my second time and Wendy's first time.  We did great.  It was such a blast.

We brought our own fans.  They screamed for us at the finish line. They rang cow bells.  We waved at them like crazy people and tried to pick up our pace to show off for our sweet, sweet children.  My legs didn't completely cooperate with my plan of showing off.  They had really stopped cooperating back at mile 10, but I was determined to keep going and cross that finish line.

I crossed it.  I'm hurting today.  It was totally and completely worth it.

Back to running pants.  Running pants are great.  They keep your quadriceps warm so you can run.  They don't blow in the wind.  They wick sweat away.  They really are wonderful things.  However, I don't believe I've met one woman who thinks they look good in their running pants.  Every woman I've talked to, thinks their butt looks big.  When speaking about running pants, the words jiggly, huge, and cottage cheese inevitably come up.

Wendy, Lynn and I were troubled over our pants. Should we, shouldn't we?  What to do, what to do.  We decided Saturday, after much angst and conversation that women like us, shouldn't give a hoot about what other people think about our butts.  We're running.  Hello! Who cares if others see huge amounts of jiggling cottage cheese going on back there.  We're running.  We're crossing that finish line.

Part of the fun yesterday was being in the mix of other people with the same goal as me.  They wanted to cross that finish line.  People wore funky socks, funky hats, shirts of every color, shoes of every color, some people wore belts with water bottles attached, some people wore shorts and tank tops, others wore running pants.

The starting line is a complete crush of people.  It's difficult to run because you are pressed in on every side.  I think it was about mile 4 or 5, where I finally felt I was finding my stride.  Looking around, I noticed other people who were also going my pace.  Things had opened up.  I could move a little bit and not worry so much about hitting someone else.  People started looking familiar, they were running close to the same pace as I was.  Enter, a beautiful young girl Lizzy and her friend.

I followed these two lovely girls for quite a while.  I'd guess they were in their early twenties.  They were running pants girls.  At one point Lizzy friend says, "take a look, how does my butt look?"

I couldn't believe it.  These beautiful young girls were worried about their butts.  I just had to laugh.

After a while I got up closer to them and I told them their butts looked great.

We continued to go back and forth for a while, I'd pass them, they'd pass me.  We talked.  They told me their names but the only one I can remember was Lizzy.  I told her it was a great name.

Eventually their twenty something legs left my forty something legs in the dust.  I looked for them at the finish line but there were too many people.

If you gals are reading this..... Congratulations.  You did it.  You crossed that line, you wore your running pants and your butts looked good.  Good Job!

Here's to jiggly, cottage cheese butts, crossing finish lines in running pants.

Hallelujah.