■ $70 — Race entry fee.
■ $5 — Processing fee (oh, you’d like us to PROCESS your entry fee. That will cost extra, you know.)
■ $100 — Shoes bought in a futile effort to ward off the rocks on the course.
■ $50 — Three days of vacation for the race (I factored this in at $6 an hour, although I may actually make more than that. or less.)
■ $6 –Tylenol to fight headaches caused from worrying about race for three months.
■ $8 — Six-pack of 1554 consumed in bitter disappointment upon realizing I inherited Mo’s Flu From Hell exactly one week before the race.
■ $0 — Total spent in the week leading up to the race. Being comatose is quite economical.
■ $1 — Three peanut butter sandwiches assembled  as fever breaks on the day before the race and I entertain the delirious dream of still participating,
■ $1 — Conciliatory Hershey bar on the way to race as reality sets in that the walk to the car has created total exhaustion. 15 miles? Yeah, right.
■ $60 — Gas to drive three hours to and from race I can’t run.
■ $80 –Hotel room in which heating apparently would have been an extra fee. In fairness, Tom said he’d leave the light on for us. He said nothing about the heater.
■ 0 — Hours of sleep obtained in hotel as hilarious hack-a-thon cough party ensues. Look from runner in next room seems to indicate he didn’t get the joke.
■ $8 — Six cheeseburgers purchased on the way to the race as later meals for spectating. Nobody said racing is healthy. Well, they probably did, but they were lying. Never trust runners.
■ $4 — Two cups of cocoa while waiting for peeps to arrive at start line.
■ $0 — Race packet with T-shirt I can never wear because I didn’t run the race (runner’s code, you know). Wish peeps well as they set off for adventure even as I realize pneumonia is setting in. Spending a sleepless night and morning in the icy cold apparently not the prescription for a speedy recovery.
■ $5 — Slice of pizza and two corn dogs on drive home. Wallowing in self-pity is greatly eased by corn dogs. (seriously. look it up on webMD.)
■ $140 — Mo, taking advantage of  my total incapacitation, stops at a flea market in a little town on the way home. Buys a pet goat and a  jar of honey. Don’t ask.
■ $14 — Robitussin/NyQuil nightcap.
■ $0 –Another three days lying comatose.
■ $70 — Sign up for next race in a futile effort to stave off depression.
■ $5 — Processing fee (oh, you want us to PROCESS your entry fee. That will cost extra, you know. Yes, I know.)
■ Await inevitable tickle in throat a week before next race.