Saturday, September 15, 2012

Warning: Extreme grossness ahead

I'm serious: If you're squeamish about bodies, don't bother reading any longer.

This is either the second- or third-grossest running-related experience I have had. Here goes.

Over the course of last night's run, I occasionally saw clouds of gnats, or wiped one off my face as I flicked away sweat droplets. This is normal-level gross for runners.

I suspected that one or two had probably flown into my mouth. This is also normal-level gross, though I'm sure some runner at some point already has made the crack about midrun fueling or alternative protein sources.

Like many runners, I find that running loosens things up in my sinuses, and it comes out both through the nose and the mouth. So once I returned home, I spat into my bathroom sink ...

... and saw several colors. Red, from the Gatorade I'd gulped upon my return; yellow-brown, from the mucus; and black, from the gnat that had apparently lodged itself in my throat, where it would've remained had I not acted like a 19th-century saloon patron.

If that wasn't gross enough for you, I'm sorry (not really); I just figured that, given how my former co-workers were afraid to hear that a gnat had been sucked up into my vortexlike nostrils while I was on a run, this would freak people out.

Also, any resemblance in the structure of this post to "The Monster at the End of This Book" is purely subconscious. It was a big favorite of preschool-age Sadye.

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