Outside Looking In: A Wife's Perspective

Logan has been bugging me for a few months now to write a blog post for the store site.  Bug, bug, bug.  Nag, nag, nag.  Run, run, run.  That’s all he does.  Just kidding, he really is the best! :) I really do want to tell you what it’s like to be a runner’s wife, though.  I think it is important that all you runners out there with significant others know what it really is like, so you can warn your true love before the relationship gets too serious.  For those of you in a relationship with a runner, GET. OUT. NOW.  Kidding again, honey!  I originally thought this might be a one post kind of thing, but as I began to write, I realized there is so much to WARN YOU ABOUT!!!  (ahem, I mean so many joys to share).

Let me give you my first warning in today’s post:  All of your “vacations” will center around running.  Have we been to Chicago?  Yes.  Was the purpose of our va-cay to go shopping on Michigan Avenue and dine on fancy dinners? I know this is hard to believe, but no.  

Let me take you back to the fall of 2011.  Instead of packing my bags for a romantic weekend getaway with my new husband of two months, I was forced into a stinky car with four men, and one woman…me.  I was reassured that it would be a fabulous trip.  

Shortly after hitting the road, one of the guys (I won’t name names) bragged all about the hotel in Iowa he had found on a website that was really nice and a really good deal.  Imagine my surprise when our caravan pulled up to a casino hotel.  Classy, right?  Not so much.  The boys spent the evening gambling away the money they had “saved” on this good deal of a hotel that I heard so much about.  Being the fabulous wife I am, I joined them for a couple rounds at the penny slots.  My sweet, caring husband and I left the casino to go to bed at a decent hour, leaving the other three gentlemen behin…or so I thought.  About a year and a half later, I found out my new husband had waited until I had entered the REM portion of my beauty sleep just to sneak back down to the casino with his friends!! I tell you, these runners are shady people.  

After our not so classy night stay at the casino hotel, I was promised a nice breakfast at a hotspot in town.  Let me just say this:  The restaurant was famous for their “Magic Mountains” and “Volcanos.”  The boys scarfed down their nacho cheese and gravy drenched pancake and hashbrown mountains while I contemplated my escape back to the good life.  I was somehow tricked back into the car, though.  

We finally made it to Chicago.  Ahhhhhhhh….what a fabulous city!  We explored the town that evening (and by explored, no, I don’t mean shopping) and hit the sheets early for the big marathon in the morning.  Luckily, one of the guys was not running, so I would have company to watch my husband in all of his sweatiness and tiny-shorts glory.  Did anyone else know that watching a marathon does not consist of hanging out on a portable chair while watching the runners pass and cheering them on?  You actually have to WALK a marathon.  No one warned me.  I did not train for that.  A couple miles into my unexpected marathon trek, I got an awful, terrible, ugly, painful blister on my little toe.  My marathon viewing partner would not even let me stop for a band-aid.  It was the most torturous day for me.  Later, I found out that one of my husband’s friends had bloody nipples after the marathon, but I told him to stop his whining because I, too, knew what that felt like from my toe blister experience.  I’m sure it was basically the same thing.  What a baby.

That night, we feasted on another manly dinner of the largest, thickest, cheesiest pizza I had ever seen.  When would I be getting to choose the meals?  If you ever have to go on a marathon trip, ladies, let me just say you will NOT be eating at the Cheesecake Factory.

I woke up the next morning to FANTASTIC news.  We were heading to Michigan Avenue!  While the boys walked around seemingly constipated from their marathon soreness, I tried to avoid the embarrassment by shopping in every store possible, until my 30 MINUTES were up.  The boys didn’t seem to understand that a half hour is not a long time to shop. I successfully argued for an extra hour, but could have used three…or twenty.

It was finally time to head home.  I was ready, the runners were not.  We made a couple of stops on the way back to “the good life”, one to see who could fit the most chicken McNuggets into their tiny little runner stomachs, and the second to feast on chocolate covered bacon and Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers at a dainty little dinner café called “The Machine Shed,” because obviously we hadn’t had a lot to eat on this trip already.

We were finally home!  While my husband struggled to get up the stairs to our apartment, I got in the car and drove to the nearest office of a divorce lawyer.  Just kidding again!  We are still happily married, at least until the next marathon trip.  

Stay tuned for my next post about what it’s like to be a runner’s wife.  In the meantime, I hope you will check out my new blog, The Fashionista Teacher.  I promise not to be discussing bloody nipples or Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers.  

Jenna Watley

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