It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Lee Peacock. He was one of the first TravellingFit people I met during the aborted Outback Marathon of 2015 (Thanks again, Virgin Australia, for sucking bigly). He was great, as were all the TravellingFit folks. So it was great to have him recognize me as I walked up to him in the lobby and to get a big ol’ hug. Lee said he was excited to see me run a marathon finally given that I only got to do a last-minute 6K in the bush; even then Lee said I ran through the finish line and immediately grabbed my Mom so we could make it to the camels. Mom and I are legends I guess in the TF office… which is ironic because I think all of TF are legends themselves.
Anyway, Lee was sad to hear about my brother’s appendicitis and inability therefore to make it to the run. When he handed me my running shirt, a surprised custom job for Steve, I asked him to take a photo. He’s the one who insisted we look sad … we did it not to make Steve feel bad about not being able to make it, we wanted him to know how sorry we were he wasn’t here.
So to make sure that’s the message, here’s one of us happy-go-lucky.
And here’s a close-up of the shirts themselves. Would’ve been great to rock them on Sunday together, Steve. But we’ll find another race soon to run. Miss you, man.
***
***
An aside — the local experts for TravellingFit told me a funny story. Apparently the German word for “East” is “osten” which is pronounced suspiciously like “aussie.” So when the Aussies shout, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” the Germans think they’re shouting about East Germans. Words matter. Cultures matter. Misunderstandings can be comical.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, oi, oi!