Cut to the chase: No-nonsense runner gifts that won't break your bank

I was going to start this off by saying that all a runner really needs is a decent pair of shoes. Edited that thought right out of my brain when a barefoot nut job shot past me like he stole something around mile 18 of my most recent marathon.  

But in truth, we runners don’t require tons of expensive crap. Hundred-dollar track shorts? Hype. Sparkly bra straps? Fun hype. Technological doohickeys?  Hype that will be outdated or broken seconds after we throw out the receipts.

   

Here’s what we really need: someone to clean the house, mow the lawn, grocery shop, cook, and in an ideal world work our day jobs for us so we can spend all our time running, cross-training, sleeping, eating, obsessing over our next races. Seriously, a homemade gift certificate promising to make dinner twice a week or clean the kitchen for a month is a super thoughtful gift. Hint. Hint.

Runners aren’t too hard to please. We love our commemorative t-shirts and medals, our race sacs filled with sponsor chapsticks, bottle openers, staplers – yup, from a 5k this past September, healing lotions, hard candies. We are the little kid who goes to the birthday party for the goody bag. We are the five-year-olds of the sporting world. 

I’m not saying I’d turn up my nose at a home treadmill, or a $120 pair of Lululemon running pants. Obviously, I’d politely keep the treadmill because winter in New England. But I would just as politely return the overpriced running pants and use the cash to register for a couple of races, or buy myself a bunch of shorts and socks from my local running store, and maybe a decent pair of yoga pants from Marshall's too. 

The intent of this list is to cut to the chase and offer some sane gift solutions. If you’re inclined, by all means spend a ton of cash on your runner this holiday season. There are plenty of merchants out there more than ready to convince you that you absolutely positively must go into debt on behalf of your loved ones or it just ain't Christmas. But if you want to save a buck or three, and still give your runner something he or she will appreciate, read on.  

1. Good running socks.  $8+.  Avoid cotton.  Here are some brands we love, though this is by no means a complete list: Thorlo, Feetures, Brooks, Asics.

Really truly: cotton + running = OUCH!!!!

   

2. Foam roller. $30+.  Basically, a meat tenderizer for your muscles. Excellent self-massager for pre- and post-run time. 

Foam roller: A runner's best friend.

 3. The Stick. $20+ A self-massager, like the foam roller, but more travel-friendly. 

The Stick: The foam roller's plucky little sister.

4. Gus, gels, energy shots. $1+.  We always need this stuff and usually forget to buy it.  

 

5. Bath salts. $3+.  Epsom salt baths soothe and relax aching muscles. You can buy pre-made gift jars or give your runner the ingredients to concoct her own recipe. All you need are Epsom salts, baking soda, and some essential oils. 

6. Body lubricant.  $5+ . Chafing is the runner word for that horrific burning sensation brought on when skin meets skin/ seams/ cotton over and over for miles and miles.  Lots of runners swear by Body Glide, but there are plenty of other great products out there. Ask your local running pro. She’ll know. 

Nothing frictional here: Lots of runners swear by this brand too.

7. Gloves/ Mittens. $1+.  You can blow some serious bucks on keeping your fingertips warm. And maybe you want to and if so, fine. I have two pairs of expensive running gloves and rarely wear them because I’m afraid of losing one. I tend to drop things when I run. Plus, my cheapo gloves are warmer. Personally, I’m a fan of the Target two for $2 specials. 

These are great. 

These may not have all the bells and whistles, but maybe you don't need gloves with bells and whistles.

8. Motivational calendar. Runner’s World always puts out a great one, which I usually permanently misplace sometime in February. Still, I hear calendars are a great way to keep yourself organized.

9. Dark chocolate and red wine. Both heal muscles. Both should be purchased in large quantities for maximum effectiveness.  

Looking at this, I'm getting thirsty just thinking of all the muscles I could be healing right now. 

10. Fitness equipment she’ll use. $10+.  Runners in the know swear by core training. Items like stability and Bosu balls, weights, yoga mats are our gym staples. Having access to them at home is priceless on cold winter days.   

 

Stability: We all need it, or so I've been told.

11. Running books, books, and more books.  My favorite right now: “The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances” by The Oatmeal, also known as Matthew Inman.  It’s quite funny, easy on the eyes, and super smart, like me and all my runner friends.  

A sample of why I adore this book.

12. Gift certificates. The sky is the $$$ limit. In addition to the obvious place – your local running store, how about getting your runner a massage or a personal training session?

13. Membership. $20+.  If your runner is a little nutso about longer distances, consider signing her up for membership with a judgment-free group that will accept her peculiarities with open arms and blistered feet. Maybe get her a membership with your local running club. Or look into signing her up for these national, freakishly obsessed groups:  Marathon Maniacs and/ or Half Fanatics. Visit www.marathonmaniacs.com for more info and qualification standards. 

Your runner might feel at home in one of these groups.  Happy to say I feel welcome in both.

I’d write more but the sun is shining, the sky is bright blue, the snowplows have finally scraped the pavement clean, yesterday’s third helping of pecan pie is weighing heavy on my hips, and I’m craving chocolate and red wine. In other words, it’s time for a run.  

Oops. One last thing. If none of the above strikes your fancy, maybe try this. Nudge. Wink.

It's always runny in Philadelphia

I want to make sure I document my marathon ventures as I take on this great country one state at a time, but it’s tough to get it all down.

How to begin this newest race report. . .

How about favorite running signs?  There were the usual ones:

“You think you’re tired? I have to stand here and watch you!”

“Worst. Parade. Ever.”

My favorite was new to me: “Why do the cute ones always run away.”   

My second favorite: “Hey random stranger, I’m proud of you!”

Random strangers, random kindness. There was a lot of that in this city of brotherly run and sisterly endurance. Yeah. That was the race motto. Brotherly run. Sisterly endurance.  Notice that instead of love it says run. For me, the substitution works because run and love go hand-in-hand. I like that the race organizers think that way too.  And how can I not adore that the race folks took one of the finest character traits out there – endurance – and combined it with a female descriptor?

Sisterly endurance?  Perfect.

We left in the wee hours of a frigid Saturday morning. There were three of us, me, my friend M, who was running her third marathon, and G, another runner who hasn’t yet bitten into the marathon apple.

The road trip was the best kind: uneventful and pleasantly fast. We arrived at the marathon expo just about 5.5 hours after we started. The expo was meh. No weird products. No drama. Not overly exciting. No offense intended, Philly. It’s just that I’ve overindulged way too many times at Boston’s, and I’ve yet to visit an expo that can compare in terms of noise, chaos, amount of vendors, and abundance of goodwill. 

Only bought one item, the book “Marathon Man,” by the legendary Bill Rodgers who was kindly signing autographs and chatting with each of us like we were long lost relatives -- the kind you want to find, not the kind you want to hide from.  When I told him about my quest to run all fifty states, he told me I wasn’t nuts, then started talking about some of his favorite races, including a ten-miler he used to do in my hometown. I got an endorphin high just listening to him. 

By the time we left the expo, my head was spinning. Given the early morning wake up, the long drive, the pre-race jitters, I was done. After a brief visit to the Reading Terminal Market, an indoor riot of bakeries, delis, florists, veggie stands, butchers, you name it, we hit our hotel. I was in bed by 8, and tossed, turned, and checked email for the next eight hours. Four-thirty could not come fast enough.

Next morning, G dropped us off at the race start well before six. Me, M, and another runner friend, N, huddled on a curb near the start, and in the gray light of dawn watched other frozen runners shiver past us. I’d brought a garbage bag to use as a poncho, but had foolishly opted to leave my gloves in the car. By the time we got in line to use the portable toilets one last time, I was shaking pretty badly and was worrying that I’d be worn out before the race began.  

We got to talking to the folks nearby. Where are you from? Doing the full or the half? Ain’t this cold a bitch?  Around us, loud speakers blared your typical starting line music. The sun was finally rising. We were just a couple of yards from the Philadelphia Museum of Art's iconic Rocky staircase.  When the woman in front of me said her name, I recited its Irish meaning. T has the same name as my sister.  T said she was from Philly and was doing the half. She gave us some tips on running the full. It was obvious she was familiar with the course. 

They were calling for runners to line up, so we started saying good-bye to this new friend.  She took off her gloves and handed them to me. I said no, I couldn’t take them. It was my own stupidity, my own fault that I was cold. T, this new sister, insisted. She turned the gloves inside out, and showed me the hand warmers inside. I again said no, I couldn’t. She said they only cost her a buck at CVS. Your hands will warm up right away, she said. Please, take them.

Finally, I did, blubbering something about the marathon motto and brotherly love and sisterly endurance. First thing I did with those gloves was wipe my eyes.

I jogged to the blue corral and my five-hour-plus marathon family, to the left of the Rocky stairs and the Rocky bronze statue, which was decked out for the day in a Philadelphia Marathon race shirt. The trumpet fanfare from the Rocky soundtrack was blasting over the loudspeakers. The front runners in the first corral had already crossed the starting line.  

I met up with two new friends in my corral, Kevin and Kim, both from New Jersey. I told them this was going to be marathon eighteen for me, and I was thinking I was kind of nuts to be there. Kim said she’d run her eighth just a few weeks back. Kevin was running his seventy-first. 

I said I hadn’t slept at all the night before and asked Kevin how long it took for his pre-race jitters to quit. He told me he’d never yet been able to sleep the night before a marathon. I asked him how many marathons he does per year. His answer: usually about fifteen, though 2014 was rough because he’d lost his dad. He’d only gotten in about eight. He pointed to the American Heart Association logo on the front of his singlet. His dad’s name was printed on the back. He said he was in for a tough run because he hadn’t been able to train much. 

The Flashdance song “What a Feeling,” started playing and we began moving forward. The race announcer said Bill Rodgers was with him. We all cheered when he shared this quote from Bill: “These marathoners are the best of America.” I looked at my gloves, and imagined my veins as warm rivers running from my fingers through my arms, all over my insides and down to my knees and it hit me that there was nowhere else I wanted to be right then and there but at that start line.

For the record, Flashdance was set in Pittsburgh, not Philly. But that doesn't take away from the fact that "What a Feeling" is an excellent starting line song. 

When the gun went off we all started up and I nearly got knocked down by the runner immediately in front of me. She stopped short and I smashed right into her.  

I said, “Geez. What the heck, lady?” 

She apologized and pointed somewhere off behind me. She told me I’d just missed the mayor, who was high-fiving every runner.

   

That’s the last important thing I remember from the start. We took off and ran on lots of flat road, all the way down to the Delaware River and past our hotel. Then we turned and headed back into the city. We passed stately brick townhomes, bars, sex shops, restaurants. I didn’t even notice the few hills that folks swore were on the course. We ran a bit through Drexel University and I talked for awhile with a guy who noticed I was wearing a Maine Marathon t-shirt and talked about how he traveled a lot to Portland to visit his girlfriend. We headed out of the city then turned back. We hit the Schuylkill River, which I now know how to pronounce, sort of. 

Sadly, I did not see Paddy's. 

At the halfway point, the art museum, we lost the half marathoners, who veered right to their finish line.  We continued around by my buddy Rocky, and I had to laugh because the announcer was reading off the list of speedy folks who’d already won the marathon. For miles we ran down one side of a road while the three- and four-hour marathoners ran toward us, up the other side. 

I guess some folks might think it’s depressing to be only halfway done with a race when the fast folks win it. I know some people might get frustrated and dispirited when they’re trotting along one direction for miles, while others, so far ahead of them, are coming back the opposite way. Me? I love it. 

There’s a saying that if you lose faith in human nature, you’ll get that faith back and more by watching a marathon.  There’s a ton of truth in that. When I’m out there plugging along, finishing my own race at my own pace, endorphins coursing through my heart and soul, and on top of that I get the gift of watching a marathon too? I don’t believe the word has been invented yet that fully describes the kind of high I feel. It is life-affirming to the max. 

When I finally got the chance to turn around at the far end of the course in Manayunk, where the fans rival Boston in terms of rowdiness and revelry – there were beer tables set up for runners for example – I was eager and ready to finish up the run. I was marveling at how well my legs were holding up. I was slow. I’ve been slow this whole year. But I was steady like I haven’t been in ages. My legs did not falter. Not once.  

I’d been worried about that final hill near the art museum, which had seemed endless on the way down. The last few miles of the course, I’d been so enthralled watching the runners around me and the fans with their signs. It occurred to me, as I reached the mile 26 mark that I’d totally forgotten about the hill’s existence. Somehow, I’d gotten up a half-mile-long hill without even noticing.  I saw the Rocky statue and decided to just go for it and run how I felt. I picked up speed and pounded toward the finish line. I didn’t want to stop, even when I was done. 

All three of us running that day – me, M, and N, had great days. The two younger women both set new personal records. I guess I did too, though unlike them, mine didn’t involve time. But while Philly wasn’t my fastest marathon, it took me to new places mentally and physically. Before this year, I’d hardly ever run more than one marathon per twelve months. This year, from April to November, I ran five.

Makes me think . . . I wonder what else I can do? Wow. What a feeling. 

Marathon: 18

State: 9 

 

Wise words. 

Why I miss retail

I’ve been thinking lately about returning to the wild and crazy world of part-time retail. I miss spending my entire paycheck on employee discounted clothes. I miss the free samples of general tso’s chicken at the food court. I miss the sanity.  

Some background first.  

I became a single mom when my daughters were still tiny. What I got in child support would have paid for about a half year’s tuition at the private all-boy high school where my ex had gone. So for years, I worked all kinds of nutty hours waitressing, because teacher pay even at the start of your career with a master’s and ten years work experience in another profession, is insultingly low. 

Still, I somehow managed to stay involved  in my daughters’ lives.  Our house was always full of books, though we went without television for three years because I couldn’t afford cable. I never took my kids to Disney World, but we traveled across the country two times. My job as parent was THE job. Everything else was secondary.

I did a good job. My girls did too. They had solid college opportunities. Both of my daughters opted for competitive, nationally recognized universities with hefty tuitions. They both got great financial aid packages, with a mix of some loans and lots of scholarships. I had no problem swinging tuition for the first child. Her dad and I evenly split the costs. 

However, with the second, the dad decided he couldn’t afford to help. He informed me of this two weeks before her first tuition payment was due. Luckily, we had a court date coming up because he hadn’t paid child support in ages. At the courthouse, he produced some fascinating tax documents that supported his position and destroyed what was left of my almost-nil faith in the system.  Amazes me still, how someone who owned so much rental property could legally get away with showing they have absolutely no income.

So, I needed to get a third job so my kid could go to the college she’d worked so hard to get into. It was the least I could do for her. I say third job because for years I’d been working two: teaching full-time, and working in an after school program. I got a job working 10 -15 hours a week in one of my favorite stores at our local mall. 

Retail can be stressful to the point of nuttiness if you work it full-time.  But when you’re a part-timer like I was, it’s a lot of fun. You have to like working with people. You have to enjoy, for a little while at least, making small talk. Working in retail is social. Most of the time, I loved it. 

Sure, there were a few jerky clients.  There were customers who’d act like I was their personal slave, sending me running around the store for this color or that size, leaving empty latte cups behind, piles of clothes turned inside out on the dressing room floor. 

You’d get these head cases who seemed more interested in using you for body image therapy than in buying anything.  Then there were the creepy guys who’d want to sit in the dressing room while their significant others tried on new clothes, even though it was obvious that that section of the store was female-only.    

The worst for me were the moms, sometimes accompanied by dads,  who’d let their kids run all over the place, spill cookies and juice,  while they talked on their cell phones or obsessed over how a pair of pants fit, or which color sweater better matched their eyes. I had absolutely no problem speaking up when their children were fooling around. I’d hand parents tissues so they could clean up the messes they let their little ones leave behind.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of parents who’d act like it was my job to clean up after their kids. Seriously. It was eye-opening.

I even went so far once as to tell a particularly clueless parent that I would have to call mall security if she continued to let her toddler run out of the store and into the mall walkway.  I was appalled that I had to keep retrieving the kid for her. 

I quit retail a few years back when I started having to call in sick a lot because of family illnesses that seemed to always coincide with my weekend shifts. Plus, my girls were both out of college then and I didn’t need the money so much anyhow. 

There are so many things I truly miss about working in retail. I miss the pleasant chit chat. You don’t get much of that in the schools these days. Most teachers I know are beyond stressed. Any talking we do tends to focus on testing, student data, classroom behaviors, and heartbreaking out of school issues that we have no control over, like homelessness, violence, and so many skewed parental priorities that don’t involve putting kids first.    

I miss the social outlet that the retail world gave me. I miss the clothing discounts too. But I don’t miss the obnoxious customers. I don’t miss the parents who expected me to clean up their kids’ messes.  In the store where I worked, parents were held responsible for their kids’ behaviors. I appreciate that. It dovetails with my own personal beliefs.  

I miss that saner, rational way of thinking. That’s another reason I miss retail.