My boobs.  There they were, gleaming in the morning sun, leaping up and down in the unrestrained joy of their sudden freedom

There they were, laughing at me, mocking me, and stealing the power of speech from the man running next to me.

It happened in one horrible, fleeting, eternal instant, my boobs suddenly worshipping the sun.  I was training for the Los Angeles Marathon – coming up this May 25^th! – with a local running club.  The club, a thousand runners strong, is divided into 12 pace groups, from fastest runners to slowest.  I was not in the fastest group, nor the slowest.  During this Saturday training run we were chugging along, doing our first 20-mile run of the season.  I felt good, I felt strong.  This was going to be so very satisfying.  One minute I was running along, measuring my pace and casually engaging in chit-chat with a man who was part of our group, and the next instant my life had changed completely.

Running 20 miles gives you a lot of time to chat, and it is common to strike up conversations with various people in the group as we pass the time and miles.  Running 20 miles also gives your boobs a lot of time to figure out a way to dig, file or claw their way out of your sports bra.  And the bigger your boobs are, the more vigorously they pursue escape.

My boobs are apparently big enough to get the job done.  They were able to scale the wall and dash to freedom, much to the shock and delight of my momentary running buddy.

I’m not sure how it happened.  I was running blithely along, and then…pop!!! …they leaped out over the top of my bra in one quick motion.  My brand new, stylish, four-clasp, very supportive, Moving Comfort sports bra, which was so fashionable that I didn’t feel the need to wear a shirt over it.  Yes, my fucking traitorous, petty, immature and entirely inadequate Moving Comfort bra.

Not that Moving Comfort bras are bad.  They’re great.  My best and favorite sports bras are all by Moving Comfort.  For well-endowed women there is nothing better.  Unfortunately, this brand new one was apparently the wrong size, and Saturday morning it moved a little too much for my comfort.

I am now convinced that that bra was somehow possessed by the prankster soul of a hormonal, 14-year old boy.

You know, it never occurs to us just how difficult some things are.  As it turns out, it is not so easy to get fleeing boobs back into a securely snapped sports bra.  It’s like trying to get a lawnmower back into its original box.  Even though my new bra wasn’t tight enough to keep the girls from escaping, it seems it was plenty tight enough to keep me from easily re-incarcerating them.

So there I stood, on an open stretch of the strand in Venice Beach, California, in the company of a thousand other runners and assorted tourists and homeless people, with my boobs hanging out and me udderly (sic!) unable to get them hidden.  I tugged.  I twisted.  I pulled.  I contorted.  Christ, it seemed like an hour!

For the first few seconds, I had actually continued running while trying to recapture my fleeing bosoms.   My “friend” had been talking to me as we ran.  He suddenly fell silent mid-sentence, and his eyes widened bigger than I had thought possible.  Same with his mouth.  And when I stopped, he stopped, too.  Like, absent-mindedly – unconsciously, as if he had no will of his own.

Did I mention it was kind of chilly, too?

I quickly realized that my felonious ta-tas weren’t coming back aboard as swiftly as they had jumped ship, so I stopped running and tried to turn my back on the members of my group.

I turned west: There was another, faster, group going by.

I turned east: My group again, its members still padding past.

I turned north: A bunch of tourists, one with a video camera, and this guy:

I turned south.  A group of homeless men, one of whom was yelling “Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh, beyoooo-teeeeee-ful!”

No buildings in sight.  No trees.  Just and endless stretch of flat, densely populated sand.

Now, Venice Beach is known for its plethora of odd characters and sights.  It is not at all unusual to see people like this on any given day:

But even on Venice Beach you never see naked runners, so I was quite the center of attention.

Sometimes, the only way out of Dante’s inferno is down through all the levels of hell.  And that’s what it took this time.  Yes, that’s right.  The only way I was going to get those puppies back into the house was to take my bra off entirely and then put it back on.  Which I proceeded to do in front of the entire population of California.

In order to unsnap the bra from the back, I had to stand up straight and kind of arch my back as I reached behind me.  Off came the bra.  And there I stood, nips to the wind, back slightly arched, wearing nothing but tiny running shorts and shoes.

And yes, every eye was upon me.  Every. Damned. Pair.

You know how in the movies, when the bad guy is pursuing the vulnerable girl and she’s trying to get in her house but is fumbling the keys so badly that she can’t open the door?  Yup.  That was me, standing there nekkid, unable to get my bra back on.  Something I’ve done at least once a day since my breasts took their first tentative steps into the world had suddenly become impossible.

That’s when I was rescued.  Another running group had caught up and was loping past where I stood.  One of the runners, a girl I had shared a comment or two with at a water station one day, left the pack and ran up behind me.  “Here honey, “ she said.  “Let me help you with that.” 

“Thank you so much!” I said, adding, “Please snap it on the tightest hooks.”

And quick as a wink she snapped all four hooks on my turncoat sports bra.

I then ended my run for the day, and walked back to my car.  Alone.  Just the three of us.

And that’s my excuse for running only eight miles instead of 20, last Saturday.