The Charge of the White Brigade

12 laps. 12 sober laps. This Naked Quad Run was, in all honesty, probably the most significant thing I've done since I came to Tufts. If the naked quad run were the Olympics, I would be China, minus the performance-enhancing drugs. That's how much I owned Friday night.
The day did not start auspiciously. We got our first snowstorm of the winter Friday morning, and the wind-chill was in the teens. Worse, for most of the day I thought I'd be running solo, which is bad. I'd been trying to get some of my martial arts buddies to run with me, but they were unable. And after striking out with two of them, I realized just how few people up here I really call friends. Sure there were other people I knew, but it's kind of awkward to call them up and say, "Hey, what are you doing tonight? Running naked? Hey, me too! We should team up!"

So up until two hours before the run, I didn't have a wingman. I admit, there were moments of weakness where I thought about turning back. But then I remembered that I'm not a little boy anymore. "No excuses!" I told myself, "A real man would run no matter what the obstacles! A setback is just a chance to man up!"

And then I received some good news in the form of Augie. Augie is another one of my training buddies, and besides being a supremely talented martial artist, he also turned out to be a supremely game naked runner. Augie hadn't run before, but he was willing.
At 8:00, two hours before game time, I prepared to head up to campus, a 15 minute walk. I dressed myself in jeans over tear away pants, fleece, a hoodie, scarf, hat, and long overcoat, and stepped outside. "Hey, it stopped snowing," I thought. "This won't be so bad after all." According to weather.com, the wind chill was 20 degrees. I was actually, in the security of my turtle shell of clothes, a little disappointed. The NQR is one of many rites of manhood one passes through, and I just felt like I would be a little more manly if hail were falling. It's amazing how idiotic I can be sometimes.

To get some more fuel for the fire, I stopped by the house of a girl whom I find very attractive, yet also excruciatingly infuriating. As I rang the doorbell, I knew I would leave the house angier than I'd gone in, but that was all part of the plan. Some people get drunk, I get angry.
Half an hour later I got to campus, socialized a bit, and scoped out the course. It was not promising. It looked like a scene from Dr. Zhigavo. And when hundreds of rowdy, naked college students start running around, turning snow into a churned mess, it can lead to a lot of problems.
I met Augie, and two of his friends who were also running, with just a few minutes to spare before the gates opened. We hurried into a nearby dorm and stripped down to our most insignificant piece of clothing, then ran outside, joined the mass of people who were waiting to run, removed the one remaining item of clothing protecting our decency, and started hollering. Mere seconds later, the first group of people took off, and we went out right behind them, dashing through the snow like Santa's four best-endowed reindeer.

During the NQR, the spectators line the track so closely that you can reach out and high-five them. Shy people, who are only running because they were pressured into it by their friends Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, tend to run on the inside of the track, in large masses of people where individual naked bodies are indistinguishable. Not us. We ran out in all our glory, like the charge of the light brigade, and indeed it would not be unwarranted for a poet of Tennyson's skill to write some lines in celebration of our heroic beauty. Screaming, fist pumping, and heavy-metal saluting, we tore around the track.

"How many laps are we running?" asked Augie?
"How about five?" I shouted back. There's a lot of screaming during the NQR.
"Alright! Five laps! Let's Go!"

And we went. The first lap was easy, but by the second the course had gotten packed. Oftentimes we were reduced to a shuffling run. You had to dodge and weave in and out of people, trying to avoid all physical contact, like a chaotic mass of magnets all of the same polarity. I passed a girl running and talking on her cell phone, which really proved to me that this whole cell phone thing has gotten out of hand. She's perfectly comfortable without any clothes on, but don't put down that phone!
I heard a female voice behind me say, "Jesus Christ, why do these people run so slow?" I turned around and who was it but the girl I'd visited on the way up! I cannot wait for our next conversation; it seems the tables have turned...
We got to lap four. "Alright, next lap is our last!" shouted Augie.
"I don't know, I could run a few more!" I responded. Little did Augie know that I was relying on our mutual competitiveness to push both of us to unheard of feats of naked running.
"How many more?" he asked.
"Well, I heard of someone who did eight!" I said.
"Eight! Holy crap that's a lot!"
"I know. I think we should do nine!" I proposed. And Augie, champion that he is, said:
"Alright! Nine laps HERE WE GO!"

And so we ran more laps. We passed people we knew, and were passed by them. People shouted our names from the stands. People in front of us fell down, and we had to dodge them. We swerved to the outside for high fives, and to the inside to avoid traffic jams. At one point some guy in front of me stumbled, and I juked left, then dodged right, managed to maintain my footing on the slush, and fell right back into stride like a naked caucasian Michael Vick.

Around lap seven I started hurting. Most of me felt great, but the cold began to strike me in my most vulnerable region. It was like being stabbed with an icicle, really. Also I started to have to pee. But like Odysseus clinging to the masthead, I persevered.

We got to lap nine. "Alright, last lap!" shouted Augie.
"Actually, I could do a few more!" I shouted back. "I really want to hit double digits!"
Augie looked at me, looked at the track, looked at the bystanders, and said, "Alright! Double digits!"
That is why I love him.

Lap ten came around, and without breaking down the conversation too much, I roped Augie into going for 12. And 12 glorious laps we did. The pack of runners had thinned out significantly, and though new ones were still joining, the bulk had gone already. We finished the 12th lap, and turned finally back to where I'd left my tear away pants. They were on one side of a low fence, and I just so happened to walk to the wrong side. Fortunately, there was a girl (clothed, a bystander) right next to them.

"Excuse me," I said, in my most polite southern gentleman tone. "I know this is a bit awkward, but could you hand me those pants?"
She didn't even blink. "Sure, no problem." What poise, what dignity. Maybe she too was from the South.

I then found Papa Bear - my housemate and good friend - who had the rest of my clothes. We walked up to one of the dorm buildings, but the door was closed. A little Asian girl clad only in her underwear came out to open the door. "Hey, you're in my Japanese class!" she said, spraying vodka breath in my face, and opened up her arms for a hug.

"I certainly am," I said, and being the always obliging person that I am, wrapped her up in my arms. I really need to get over this fixation I have with sobriety. It's like there's another world out there, and it's clearly more accommodating. I walked inside to the lounge, and there was yet another girl from one of my classes. She had been a bystander.
"How was it for you?" I asked.
"It was...okay." She said. "I've had better."
Obviously she hadn't seen any of my 12 laps.

I was still in significant pain, so I went to the bathroom and attempted to warm myself up with some hot water, and while I did a girl walked in wearing only a T-shirt.
"You're in the wrong bathroom," one of the other guys said.
"I don't care," she shot back. What class. What dignity.

I remained in a fair amount of pain for most of the walk home, but by the time I got inside and had a hot shower, I was pretty much back to normal, one more step to manhood complete. A fairly large step, I think. 12 laps is significant. And I was one hundred percent sober, which though not unique to the NQR, is fairly rare. Perhaps it would have been easier to run with a little fortification, but I know James Bond wouldn't need it, and so neither would I. I doubt 12 laps is a record, but it's got to be up there. 12 sober laps might be a record, but that isn't what matters. What's important is that the first time I ran I only made one circuit, but a lot has changed in two years. I've grown up and become a greater man, although Friday night, by looking at me, you wouldn't have known. Hey, it was cold outside.