Hair!

I had been running for a few years before I decided to run a marathon. How did I go from running 15 miles a week to training for a marathon? I decided that I was getting old. I turned 40 in the summer 2007 and decided that if I ever wanted to run a marathon, I had better get going. I started training a couple months after my birthday and completed Fargo before turning 41.

Another thing I decided to do because I was getting old: Grow out my hair. Here is what I looked like last summer:

I like short hair. It's sassy and sporty and I think it suits me best. But let's face it, many of the women I see running have cute, swishy ponytails. I wanted to be part of the ponytail crowd. No, I didn't want to look like this:

But maybe like this:Kara Goucher, what can I say. She's fast, she's got great abs and legs, and she has a super cute ponytail. Kristin Armstrong has a column in Runner's World and a blog on their website. She is constantly writing about her and her friends' swishing ponytails. It's like some womanly secret that us short hair people aren't able to share.

My usual mode is to do my own thing which is almost always contrary to what everyone else is doing. But that ponytail is just so sporty! Figuring that I would have lots of time as I get older to have short, sassy hair, I decided that I wanted that swishy ponytail one more time. If I was going to grow my hair out and put up with the awkward in-between stage, I better do it now.

A year later, I have my ponytail. Mission accomplished.

I had mentioned a couple of posts ago that my new wetsuit gave me a raspberry on the back of my neck. A couple of days after that first swim, I gave it another try, this time folding my wetsuit down to prevent more chaffing. That didn't work. I was left with a pretty big open wound, a big bruise and quite a bit of swelling. It wasn't healing very well at first, so I had to shave the hair off of it! AHH! A year of growing my hair out, the ponytail finally in action, and I had to shave the hair at the bottom of my hairline. Here's a picture from behind. If you look closely on the right side, you'll see the mark.

So now I'm going to have a lovely scar on the back of my neck that will be visible in ponytail mode as well as when I finally get some sense and get my short hair back. Maybe I can have a little tattoo there with an arrow pointing to it that says, "Didn't use Body Glide." I guess the scar will speak for itself. In the meantime, I'm sure it will look plenty dumb when the hair starts growing back.

The suffering that sport requires! I've been swimming in the pool while my neck heals up. I'll be slathering on the Body Glide for the Rochester Olympic Triathlon on Sunday. I'm getting excited!