Warning: This post is NSFPWATOBSA (not safe for people who are turned off by shirtless Alan)
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April 1998
As a freshmen at the University of Michigan, I learn about the existence of the Naked Mile, in which thousands of students, mostly seniors, get naked and run a mile through the heart of campus at night, after the last day of classes. Like the majority of campus, I head down to check it out. And yes, it's thousands of students (not surprisingly, the guy:girl ratio is around 5:1) running naked through a mile-long course, which is lined 5 people deep on each side. It is . . . far from sexy. However, it IS very amusing. Thus, I commit myself to running it as a senior.
April 1999
After the last day of classes as a sophomore, I head to a house belonging to a group of good friends for a party. The house is a mere block or so away from the start of the Naked Mile, a perfect spot for viewing. We all drink. We all drink a lot. We all get drunk. We all decide that it's a perfectly sane idea to run through the heart of campus while naked, thus answering the rhetorical question - if 1,000 people jumped off a bridge naked, would you? Yes. Yes I would.
Drunk enough to decide the Naked Mile is a good decision, but yet sober enough to not fall while running a mile, and sober enough to not bump into whatever guy was in front of me, which I'm sure would have caused a short bout of homophobia
April 2000
Having run the Naked Mile as sophomores, and having already overcome any fears that might go along with it, my friends and I make the obvious decision to run it once again as juniors. However, as one of the most-PC schools around, the University of Michigan decides to start cracking down it and actually having the Ann Arbor police start ticketing/arresting people, claiming that they were worried about participant's safety (though really, they just didn't want the bad press of hosting the Naked Mile and seeing DVD's of it winding up on German porn sites). Despite the added level of difficulty, and now lowered participation (~500 people), we strip down 1/5 of a mile into course, joining it on school property instead of city property where the cops where really doing the enforcement, and run it anyway.
April 2001
Naked Mile day as a senior and police presence is wide spread. If you're ticketed/arrested, you may have to register as a sex offender. I was able to handle an MIP ticket (minor in possession, aka, hosting a party while underage) during college, and handle the resultant 3 hour alcohol-is-bad class. I decide I cannot handle going door-to-door "meeting" the new neighbors every time I move, or not being able to live within a half mile of any school. We skip the Naked Mile, which in its last year of any existence probably had less than 100 runners. A tradition is dead. Sigh.
December 2008
I learn about the Santa Speedo Run. I head down to the heart of Boston to hang out with Danielle and Meredith, and watch them, and 500 others, run it. A mile plus through the streets of downtown Boston in the middle of winter. 30 seconds into meeting them at the bar, even before the run, I commit to running the following year. I twice ran a mile naked with hundreds of other people - running a mile with a speedo covering my ass and junk should be a cake walk.
December 12, 2010
I run my first Santa Speedo Run. It is incredibly enjoyable. Though the bits and pieces are covered by a speedo, it is 25 degrees or so out in Boston. Thus, the level of stupidity is still comparable to the Naked Mile.
I'm the one not in a bikini top
December 2010
Having already naked through a college campus in my life, and having already run with a speedo through a major city in the middle of winter, I decide to add a little flavor to this year's Santa Speedo Run . . . and wax my chest. Last year, there was some trimming. This year, I go bare.
So, a few days before this years run, the girl who introduced me to the Santa Speedo Run, Danielle, came over to . . . wipe the slate clean? And her new fiancee Jim came along for the ride.(And by "new", I REALLY mean new. As in, they got engaged that day at lunch. So yes, whenever they'll think about their engagement for the rest of their lives, they'll be thinking about my chest hair. Now that's friendship!).
And as the saying goes, a picture is a worth a thousand words. Thus . . .
A somewhat hairy BEFORE
3 . . .2 . . .1 . . .pain
When the wax kit ran out of material, we improvised, and the MacGyver engineering worked
A very red AFTER
As you might imagine, there was definitely some alcohol involved. OK, more than some. On both my part and Danielle's. But while it certainly hurt, like 30 ultra-adhesive extra-large band-aids being ripped off hurt, it wasn't exactly the scene from the 40 Year Old Virgin, though I'm sure Steve Carell's cardigan chest had something to do with it (however, I did get a few specks of blood).
In the end, while the pain may not have been god awful, and I am actually kind of digging the smooth chest thing, the bareness only lasts 2 months apparently, and there ain't no way I'm going through that again just for the baby smoothness. Just clippers and slight trimming from here on out . . . like a man!
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