I'm hungry...

I signed up to run in a road race today. A five-miler, no biggie. It'll be the third one I've run, ever, the first being a time trial to try out for the track team in the eigth grade. I came in dead last at that one after getting lapped at the last minute by a kid who knew enough to save a burst of speed for the end. I waited a good 20-odd years to enter another. Despite being passed by a sweaty guy who was 75 if he was a day at race number two, the embarrassment wasn't near what I felt at age 11. So now I'm entering race number three. It's a pretty simple form -- enter in your address, name, age...and then I see these two weird check boxes. One reads Filly (140 +) and Clydesdale (190 +) I call my friend Alison, who's running the race with me, and ask her what she thinks those things are for. She's as bewildered as I am. Then I get a horrifying thought: are women who weigh more than 140 pounds referred to in the road race world as horses?

Apparently they are.

When I called up the local running store sponsoring the event to complain they told me this is relatively common practice in the running world. I suppose there's an argument somewhere in that the skinnies can run faster than us um, horsies?...so there's probably no way you're going to wrest a cash prize away from a woman who only has to carry 95 pounds across the finish line. But wait! I could eat a skinny or two for extra protein power on my way 'round the track and get a burst of energy that might just put me over the top and help me beat out people not in my weight class...

Filly, indeed.