“If there was a god, I’d still have both nuts.”

— lance edward armstrong

—

We’re sitting in the oncologist’s office like we’ve done so many times before.

But this time, it feels different.

Mo stares anxiously at the door, pretending to be indifferent. She is a brilliant artist, but a lousy actor. She realizes that our entire future rests on the man who will be walking through the door any minute with the answer to a question both of us desperately want to know but dread finding out.

But first, a look back at yesterday.

I’m getting my blood drawn by some nice guy who is maybe 30 or so. Hard to say with the young whippersnappers these days.

As I sit in the too-high chair, wagging my feet, he notices my battered shoes.

“Are you a runner?” he asks.

Nothing good can come from a question like this. It generally requires “answers” and possibly “a conversation” and then all bets are off.

I mutter yes. Maybe that will be the end of it.

But no. He asks a curious question: “Which shoes do you run in? Brooks or Nikes?”

My mind races. It’s likely racing a 5K because we don’t have much time. He’s only aware of two shoe brands? How can I possibly answer this?

If I tell him the truth, that I run in Mount to Coast H1s, Escalante racers and an occasional guilty pleasure in the Asics Hyper Speeds, I will either embarrass him or be rejected as an idiot. Does he not realize there are a billion brands of shoes these days? And why Brooks? BROOKS? What to do? This calls for a diversion.

“Mostly, I just walk,” I say, brilliantly skirting the issue altogether.

He frowns and jabs the needle into the crook of my arm, missing the vein entirely. It’s not a pleasant sensation. I wonder if it was an accident.

“But when I run, I have a pair of Nike waffle trainers,” I hastily add.

He lights up. Nikes! Just as he suspected. He appears pleased.

(side note: I must admit that only recently did I learn that Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers got his name because he started out as a phlebotomist and shortened it to Flea because the full name is too hard to spell. That’s why rock stars are better off with names like Chad Smith. But I digress.)

I don’t mention that I took the Nikes out for exactly one run and hated them so much that they were immediately banished to the back of the closet. What’s important is that we have bonded. And that he finds a vein. Which he does.

He goes on to tell me that he runs in Nikes as well and his friend runs in Brooks and sucks and Air Jordans are a nice-looking shoe but you can’t play basketball in them because they make your feet hurt (which would likely come as a surprise to Michael Jordan) and sometimes he just wears Converse and isn’t sure if he likes basketball or running more and how the Freaking Hell can he talk so much when a blood draw only takes 30 seconds?

And that is how I found out I have no iron in my blood.

No idea if he rigged the test because he figured out I was wearing Altras so I had to be lying.

But that’s not why we’re here.

We’re waiting for the Baby Doc to arrive.

The 15 minutes of sitting in the little room is excruciating. It seems to be even worse for Mo than it is for me.

So it’s with a mixture of relief and panic when the doorknob slowly turns and he walks in.

As soon as we see him, we know the answer.

Which is this:

Pink.

The Baby Doc always wears a flashy bow tie. Mo likes to guess what color and has bet me a million dollars that it will be green today. I worry that she made a deal with him in advance, but apparently not.

It’s a tasteful pink with a white shirt. I am now rich beyond my wildest dreams, although the wildest dream I can remember recently involves working a news shift before realizing I was supposed to be doing the features section.

I plot how to use the cash to blackmail Mo into staying with me even though she is now married to a 70-year-old geezer. Yes, I am the Bill Belichick of ultrarunning.

But that’s probably burying the lede of the story. Which is this:

I also have a second pair of Nikes that I actually like. But the Chili Peppers bass player had already wrapped my arm up and sent me on my way before I could tell him.

This must be EXACTLY how Lance Armstrong felt when dealing with Dr. Ferrari, his doctor/drug dealer. A couple of bags of iron infusions are in my future. And I get to keep both nuts for now. What more could you ask for?

Maybe a slice of birthday cake and a jaunty hat, quickly appropriated by the Birthday Panda.

“Motivation can’t take you very far if you don’t have the legs,” Armstrong said. He didn’t mention the other stuff. But I know what he means. I start getting the other stuff tomorrow. Maybe the legs will follow.

4 miles on the indoor track after the ordeal today, still at 15:10 pace. It will be interesting to see what the same run feels like tomorrow when I’m wearing my Wile E. Coyote ACME rocket.

And yes, my worst fears about the cat scan results came true.

There was no cat at all.

I think I’ll wear the Nikes on tomorrow’s run out of principle. I hope I can find a pink tie.

Vive le Tour …