After my nice race in Sleepy Hollow yesterday, it occurred to me that I needed to clean out my backpack. This was prompted by me pulling out a sticky, soggy thing that resembled a Halls cough drop. Ew.

I’m sure most of what I found in that bag is stuff that most runners would have but some just made me wonder, “huh?”

This is the list of items that I’m sure most runners would have in their bags.

• Safety pins – I think I could supply a small local race with the amount that I had stuck in various pouches.
• D-tag remnants – These items varied in the paper tab to cover the adhesive bit, the extra length of orange strip that has the D-tag instructions on, and the D-tag itself.
• One empty Gu packet – I don’t like to litter so that Gu must have been from along run and it must have fallen out form something else. This also explains all the D-tag trash.
• Band-aids – You never know when you’ll need one.
• One almost used stick of Body Glide – For emergencies.
• One Master Combination Lock – For trips to NYRR where I sometimes stash my bag.

Now for the non-running related items.

• Chicklets Gum – I never chew gum so I have no idea how I got these or how they ended up in my bag.
• One cube-shaped eraser – I would like to think this ended up in my bag because I was feeling creative and wanted to do some writing.
• Napkins – You never know when you’re going to need a napkin. But really this is just about me taking extra napkins and not wanting to throw them out because I didn’t use them.
• One rubber band from a bunch of leeks – Huh? I’m going to blame the cat for that.

The bag is now in the washing machine and I hope it survives getting cleaned. I would like to say that I promise to keep it neat and tidy but I know better.

Non-related mention of lesbian superstar to generate more page views – Martina Navratilova.