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Confession: I once was a streaker.

A RunStreaker, that is. I ran every day for 425 days in 2011-2012.

I started the RunStreak because at the time, running had started to feel like a chore. I’d lost the joy of it. Oddly, by forcing myself to run every day, I fell in love with running again. The routine, the consistency made running what it should be: a non-negotiable part of life, like breathing or eating.

However, my RunStreak came to an abrupt end on October 8^th, the day after the 2012 Chicago Marathon. I could barely get out of bed. Walking was challenging enough. Running was out of the question. The RunStreak was dead, but I had hope that it would get resurrected.

After missing qualifying for Boston at Chicago, I decided to do the California International Marathon in December, to try again for my BQ time. Alas, my plans were blown off course by the weather on race day: monsoon-like rain and winds. After two marathons in eight weeks, I needed a break from running, both physically and mentally. The RunStreak was gone for good.

Until now.

On Monday, April 15, I spent Patriots Day as I always do, watching coverage of the Boston Marathon. It was a bit sad for me, since I’d come so close to being there myself, but it was also inspirational, as watching a marathon always is.

Boston means more to me than any other marathon. I lived on or near the course for many years. In fact, the route goes right past my old house, where I used to stand every year, cheering.

Once we moved to Chicago, watching the marathon online was my yearly way to reconnect with home. I love watching the coverage of the lead pack as they go by my old haunts. “Hey, there’s the grocery store! And the library!” I get a thrill seeing the mundane yet familiar places. I used to stand on those streets and cheer alongside the masses, but now I stand alone in my kitchen and watch a small screen on my computer.

Marathon Monday is the one day each year when I am guaranteed to be homesick.

But the sadness soon gives way to excitement as I watch the elites race towards the finish. This year I was screaming for local gal (local in Boston, that is; she’s from Marblehead) Shalane Flanagan who ran to a very impressive fourth place finish. “Go Shalane!” I yelled. “Run wicked fast!”

After the elites finished on Monday, I was inspired to go for a run. When I got back, I sat down at the computer to check runner tracking and locate friends running the marathon. One of them had just finished. Another was still out on the course.

But he wouldn’t get a chance to finish, stopped by race officials a half-mile from the finish line following the explosions.

The next day was full of questions: Who did this? Why? What do we do now? In the running community, the answer to that last question was clear: go for a run and wear a race shirt in support of those in Boston. I donned my 2012 Chicago Marathon shirt and went out to join the world in the virtual run of support.

Then on Wednesday, it seemed wrong not to run. After all, these were my people who had been attacked – my fellow runners and their friends and family. It somehow felt important to run, to show solidarity.

That’s when I realized the RunStreak had been reborn.

On Thursday I went for a run, but the weather in Chicago was stormy, so I did my bare minimum of one mile. After I got home, I had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. That’s when I realized that for this RunStreak, the minimum needs to be three miles, in honor of the three victims. I put on dry clothes and went back out to tack on two more miles.

And so this is my Boston RunStreak. Three miles. Every day.

Don’t worry, I’m not asking for money, although it you’d like to make donations to One Fund Boston, go for it. Personally, I plan to donate a dollar for every mile covered on the RunStreak. The last time I did a streak, it lasted for well over 1000 miles. Of course, I have no idea how long this one will last. Ideally, 175 days, one day for each of the people injured on Monday. Then again, a RunStreak is a delicate thing. I could end up with an injury and a broken streak tomorrow.

But for now, this is my pledge. I will run three miles every day for Boston. Want to join me?

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I was hesitant to write about the Boston Marathon bombings, because I didn’t want to make the tragedy All About Me. But there’s a movement today in the running community to wear a race shirt in support of the bombing victims, so I’m wearing my 2012 Chicago Marathon shirt. That’s the race where I missed qualifying for Boston by three minutes. Had I managed to run each mile eight seconds faster, I would have been at the start line yesterday.

And yet, I didn’t make it.

I’ve been carrying around those three minutes for the past six months, thinking of them as an albatross around my neck, letting them punish me.

Three minutes of “I should have tried harder.” Three minutes of “I should have been stronger.” Three minutes of disappointment. Three minutes of failure. Three minutes of “What if?”

Three minutes of “There but for the grace of God go I.” Three minutes of shelter. Three minutes of protection. Three minutes of thankfulness. Three minutes of a different kind of “What if?”

What if I had qualified? My running pal Chanthana, who is speedier than I am, finished the race several minutes before the blast. Had I been running yesterday, she may very well have been walking back towards the finish, ready to cheer me in from the sidelines. My parents would have been standing on Boylston Street, craning their necks to find me. My husband and kids, my brother and sister-in-law, my friends, where would they have been? On Boylston, because it’s closer to the finish area? Or on Hereford because it’s easier to spot runners? It could have been them. It could have been me.

So, yes, it is All About Me. And it’s All About You, too. It’s All About Us.

It’s about any person who has run a race or anyone who has stood on the sidelines cheering.

It’s about anyone who has gone to a public event or celebration without pausing to worry that it might be a terrorist target.

The dyeing of the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day.

The Esplanade in Boston on Fourth of July.

The Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

A concert in the park.

A summer street festival.

These are the celebrations that unite us, but now they threaten to divide us, to drive us away, to make us recoil in fear.

So I’m wearing my 2012 Chicago Marathon shirt, and I’m accepting those three minutes that kept me from Boston yesterday. I’m going to train harder and race faster and eventually I will run down Boylston Street past the blast site and towards the finish. It will be All About Me, and All About You and All About Us, and we won’t let the What Ifs scare us away.

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I have discovered The Most Useful Exercise Accessory Ever. No, it’s not a watch that says your pace while also spewing motivational quotes. It’s not a pair of running shoes with rocket engines on the back. And it’s not a two-sided bottle, with beer in one section and water in the other. (Although all of those are good ideas. Note to self: get working on ‘em.) Instead, I have discovered something that allows me to continue to run in a group, cycle in a pack, even walk through a crowded spin studio without offending anyone. I speak, my friends, of the miracle known as SportWash.

Please note, SportWash has not, in any way, compensated me for this blog post, but hey, if someone out there wants to toss me a few bottles, I’d be much obliged. I use the stuff almost daily. Why? Because otherwise I would have to burn my workout clothes.

And what, you may ask, is SportWash? It’s a miracle liquid that gets stinky odors out of exercise clothes. Even my stinky odors. No easy task. Trust me on that.

Of course, it took me a while to realize that I even needed SportWash.  A few years ago, I became aware of the fact that a couple of my favorite running shirts smelled a little, well, stale. Even straight from the laundry. Suddenly, I became nervous. If they stank before I put them on, what were they like after I exercised in them?

I became odor aware. I tried putting the shirts through the washing machine twice. I tried soaking them in a baking soda solution, with only mild success. I tried using an “odor-fighting” detergent with Febreeze, which just made them smell like stale sweat mixed with Febreeze.

Eventually, I threw the shirts away.

I simply couldn’t stand the smell of them anymore. I bought new shirts, but then found that I wasn’t wearing them  because I didn’t want them to smell bad. I started wearing shirts I didn’t like as much, but that still smelled ok: bad shirts that smelled good, if you will. But what I wanted was good shirts that didn’t smell bad – and bad shirts that smelled good, too. What to do?

And then, one day at Sports Authority, the clouds parted and a ray of light beamed down from the heavens, through the double wide glass doors, all the way down to register number eight, where I happened to be. That ray of heavenly light landed upon a detergent bottle, something called Win. I heard a voice from the heavens say “Buy this detergent, and you will never have to throw out a shirt again.” So I did. And it was good.

Shortly after, I discovered SportWash, which seems to be essentially the same stuff as Win, although I prefer the fragrance of SportWash. Since then, I’ve learned that there are several different brands out there, including one called Sport Suds which comes in a powder. But Penguin SportWash is still my favorite, hands down. Fortunately, it’s easy to find at many bike and running stores, and it’s always available through Amazon when buying locally is out of the question (Northwest Montana, I’m looking at you).

Apparently, the detergents are specially formulated to help improve the performance of wicking materials (regular detergents can clog up the fabrics and reduce the wicking potential). But I love them because they really do get rid of the stench. And as a result, they allow me to keep my favorite shirts in circulation. The good, the bad, and even the ugly.

So if you sweat a lot and your clothes smell a little funky, do everyone in your running/cycling group or spin/hot yoga class a favor and go get some kind of sport wash. Because it’s important to look good, but not if you have to smell bad.

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Last week I participated in an endurance event unlike any other. I know, I know, you’ve heard it before: I was unprepared, I wished I’d trained more, I thought about quitting, I wondered why I do these crazy things.

But this time, trust me, I really was unprepared. I had no idea what I was in for. When I started, I thought it might take a few minutes, maybe 15 or 20, worst case. Piece of cake. Little did I know.

As the event stretched past the one-hour mark, I found myself battling cramps and fatigue. I was under-fueled. I had a headache. I thought about giving up.  Would I ever get to the end? What was the point?

And then, I finally felt a glimmer of success. I had reached the finish line – or at least I thought I had. My emotions ranged all over the place: frustration, then elation, then confusion. Had I managed to make it or not?  I couldn’t really tell. It reminded me of doing my first time trial. Where was the big “Finish” banner? I wanted some confirmation, someone to say “Congratulations!” Instead, I got nothing.

I had to wait several agonizing minutes to find out that I had, in fact, been successful. Phew! I’d made it! It had taken me one hour and forty-five minutes, but I did it: I registered for the Chicago Marathon.

But I can’t help wondering, since when did signing up for a marathon become a competitive sport?

Unlike the New York marathon, which has a lottery, or the Boston Marathon, which has qualifying standards, the Chicago Marathon is the only US-based World Marathon Major that offers a straight open registration. In Ye Olde Days, you could simply log on, type in your name and credit card info, and you were in. But running marathons isn’t the marginal activity it used to be, and marathons are filling up faster than ever. Two years ago, the Chicago marathon reached capacity a month after registration opened. Last year, it filled in less than a week. This year, when registration opened at noon last Tuesday, demand swamped and crashed the Active.com website. After about two hours, registration was suspended, with 30,000 people having managed (miraculously) to complete the registration process in spite of the technical difficulties. 15,000 spots remain, but registration has been put on hold until Chicago Marathon organizers and Active.com can figure out a way to reopen registration without blowing up the entire internet. They are scheduled to announce their new plan this afternoon.

Honestly, it’s surprising that so many people want to register in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Chicago Marathon, but it’s ridiculously expensive ($175), and over the past few years, the weather has been brutal more often than not. And yet thousands of people are aggressively competing with each other for the coveted spots. Please take my money so I can be miserable on the streets of Chicago! I will gladly pay $175 for the privilege of drinking warm Gatorade and then vomiting on Michigan Ave as make the final push towards the finish!

Of course, it’s not only amazing that so many people wanted to register in the first place, it’s also amazing that so many people stuck with the process. What kind of idiot do you have to be to sit glued to your computer, encountering the same on-line dead-ends over and over and over again FOR AN HOUR AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES? You’d have to be a stupid idiot. Or an optimistic idiot. (It’s a fine line.)

Of course, that’s why we keep doing races anyway, isn’t it? Because we’re all a bunch of optimistic idiots. Some might say crazy. After all, Einstein gave the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Sounds like doing marathons, repeatedly, hoping that miraculously “this” one will be easier/faster/better. Or repeatedly clicking the “Register Now” button hoping that one of those clicks will be successful, even when all the previous ones resulted in an error message. Again. Again. Again.

For an hour and forty-five minutes.

That’s almost as crazy as running 26.2 miles.

But hey, it finally worked. Optimism is victorious! For now, at least.

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We had a strong relationship: committed, devoted, loving. We were inseparable. But then we grew apart. At first, I thought it would be just a little break while I spent time at yoga, recovering from my last marathon. Just when we were about to rekindle the romance, however, I got hit by the flu. My running shoes collected dust, ignored and unloved.

But now marathon training has started again. Alas, that neglect means that all my speed, all my endurance has disappeared. Still, I’m renewing my vows to my running shoes – every pair of them. It’s just like starting over.

A Love Song for my Running Shoes

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(In case you haven’t noticed, I wear Saucony shoes. Lots of them.)