Georgia Marathon, Furries, and Chaffed Nipples

     I ran and finished my 24th marathon this past Saturday.  It was on the mercilessly undulating Atlanta course weaving itself through the hills and valleys of such spots as Virginia Highland and Druid Hills.  You would think I would have had a premonition of the topography based on those neighborhood names, but I was blinded by catacholamines from training runs.  There were about
   

12,000 runners, 10,000 in the half  marathon and 2000 brain damaged body fat haters in the marathon, and I am always amazed at the relative diversity of folks running.  There are people who you would see on the street and not immediately assume they were runners, some even you may suspect were taste testers at the Twinkie factory, but nevertheless, they were there and getting it done.  It takes a special brand of courage to lace up the shoes, knowing you are overweight, and vow to complete a race.  Many people stay out of gyms to avoid the snickers and stray looks from the Barbies and Kens who pride themselves at having 2% body fat, so it is especially heartening to see folks of all shapes and sizes at races.  What I have also discovered is that, in differentiation from the health clubs, runners embrace these folks and see them as fellow strugglers on a path to wellness.  There is a respect and acceptance of those who don’t have the expected anorectic body habitus of a marathoner as runners understand you can’t fake covering the distance.  And for most of us, it doesn’t matter if you cover it in three hours or five hours as simply putting one foot in front of another for 26 consecutive miles is proof enough of courage,persistence, and a bit of lunacy thrown in.  It is a unique breed that wishes and then accomplishes this, and it proves there is an outlet for us all.
    
     At the same time as the race there  was another event going on in the city that, at first, didn’t resonate with me, in fact, I was arrogantly judgmental regarding it.  It was a Furry Fandom convention.  For the uninitiated, such as I was, the Furry Fandom community is a group of folks from around the country that dress up in full furry animal costumes and get together to socialize and talk about...well, their costumes.  According to that bastion of accurate detail, Wikipedia, Furry Fandom is defined as "the organized appreciation and dissemination of art and prose regarding 'Furries', or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters.”  Translated, it is people dressing in costumes
   

walking around the hotel getting to know each other.  My first thought upon seeing them walking down Peachtree Street was that it was a group of NCAA mascots promoting the final four, but I quickly realized no college team had “Sesame Ceide Bun”, a strange conglomeration of a cat and a wolf, as a mascot.  These “Furries” seemed quite harmless, and actually many were very friendly ( a bit too friendly when a hamster-like six foot thing tried to hug me!), and they did provide some fascinating people (or animal) watching during dinner at a close by restaurant. 
   
      I bring these interesting folks up because as I thought about it, they were similar in many ways to the runners, like myself.  Granted, they were very different also, but I wanted to focus on the similarities to drive home a point.  Both groups are viewed by the general public as outliers.  I can’t tell you how many times I have been stared at in disbelief when it comes up in conversation that I run marathons.  The general comments range from incredulity to pity, and I imagine the Furries get the same reaction.  Runners do what they do for many reasons, many of them intensely personal, and my guess that Furries have altogether legions of reasons for their hobby, but they common thread is that they do it because they want to, and other people’s opinions be damned.  There is no more diverse group than runners, people from every socioeconomic strata, every possible religion, race, culture, and political persuasion, and, as I learned from both their website and my discussion with them, Furries are college students, bankers, dads, moms, and even Republicans!  If you have ever seen me run, especially in the warmer months, you know I can wear some pretty outrageous costumes (I call them running clothes), in fact my daughters often refer to me as a geriatric Richard Simmons when I don my running attire.  I don’t have to tell you that the Furries seem to have cornered the market on outrageous costumes, but I will say that many of them looked a great deal less frightening than I do after a long run.  Runners love socializing and getting together at races to talk about, what else, running, and with conventions around the US and the world, obviously Furries enjoy the same.  The topics are a bit different, as a typical running seminar will give pointers as to how to avoid bloody nipples and chafing body parts whereas the Furry convention discussed inflatable furs and therianthropy (look it up, I did!).  You tell me which is more bizarre! 
   
     The point is that our human need to socialize and identify with others of similar ilk is achievable in many ways.  I realized that at its core, running is both an individual and communal activity and it happens to be my idiosyncrasy.  Dressing up in furry costumes may be your obsession, but it is no more or no less unusual than a bunch of chaff protecting, anorectic appearing, nipple guarded folks assembled at 7 AM to run, walk, even crawl if needed, to complete 26.2 miles.