Manzier Anyone? Manzier? High Embarrassment in High Park

Late this summer, on one of the many swelteringly hot, smog-draped days we endured in training this past season, I was in High Park, having just finished a hard 10 miler through the trails, when I had an older, frumpy woman stop dead in her tracks while walking along when she saw me panting and stretching under a tree, and ask me, point blank: "are your breasts drooping?"

After replaying her question in my head to make sure I was hearing it correctly (since I was a bit addled from the effort of the final 3 hard miles of that run), and verifying that, unfortunately I was, I stammered out a light-hearted response through my confusion: "Well, at a certain age, I guess everything starts to head south, right?" while I tried to figure out what about my appearance would compel her to stop and accost me with such a question. I had taken off my shirt for the final loop of my run, given that it was particularly hot and I was running very hard, and had just carried it up with me to stretch, so I was indeed sweaty and shirtless. However, though I do workout a couple times a week, and for a "skinny runner type" actually pride myself on my "pec deck", I've always felt I was a far cry from the "man breast" category of some of the gorillas I see pumping iron at the gym--so I just couldn't understand where her comment was coming from.

She continued staring at me, perplexed, and then said: "that strap...it is to stop your breasts from falling down?" and it hit me. She was talking about my heart rate monitor transmitter strap!  So after a sigh of relief, and a good chuckle, I quickly tried to explain what it was and why I was wearing it.  Don't know if she really understood what I was saying, but at that point, it didn't really matter.

So that's my most embarrassing running moment this past year. What's yours? Here's a little added incentive to take 5 minutes and drop us a line to describe it. Can be just a paragraph or two, or more if you wish. We will award a free Customized Training Plan for next season to "the best of the best" embarrassing, funny, or interesting stories that we receive on or before December 15th, as judged by our esteemed panel of experts (the MDI coaches!).