What’s with the clown?

I’ve got nothing against clowns per se.  They have their place.  Circuses, birthday parties, childrens’ nightmares.  I’ve always found them to be vaguely creepy, but vive la difference, right?

It took a tragic experience on Heartbreak Hill a few years back for me to see clowns in an entirely different light.  As I struggled up that famed incline, the Dancing Elvises and Captain Americas passed me with apparent ease, bouncing along with smiles on their faces as if this were a stroll through the big tent.  (I can assure that this is very much NOT a stroll through the big tent.)

Then came the final straw.  The guy with the wig and the Peace-nik persona.   Heretofore known as “The Clown.”

I can count on one hand the number of occasions during which I felt the slightest tug of competitiveness.  Four of those occasions involved high school cheer-leading competitions in which, I am happy to say, Our Lady of Pompeii arch rivals were soundly trounced.

The fifth occasion occurred on that fateful April day in 2008,  when the guy in the wig sauntered past me at the top of Heartbreak.  As I watched him gleefully trudging along on his way to the finish, meter high wig waving in the air, high fiving the crowd and laughing at my misfortune, I felt my competitive spirit awaken from its lifelong coma.  I briefly entertained a fantasy of him tripping over his clown shoes and falling headlong into the nearest water table.  Alas, he did not trip over his shoes, but went on to finish ahead of me.  Ditto for the next year.  While I was laid up in the medical tent trying to coax my kidneys back to life, he was trudging along, like some kind of twisted proverbial tortoise past the tent and on the finish line.  Again, ahead of me.

So here’s the thing with the clown.  I may never be a fast runner.  I may never qualify for Boston.  I’m not even sure how many marathons I have left in me.  But I know one thing for sure.  This year, the clown goes down.