• Image about tough-it-out---americanway Chad Windham  Why is it
that stories about the crazy things people put themselves
through never get old? We don’t know. But this story is way more
interesting than whatever that answer is.  What I desperately
need right now are simple things: ibuprofen, a hot shower, and a
large box of Q-tips. Antibiotics -- thanks to the sheer tonnage
of pasture effluent that invaded what the ancient Egyptians
called the seven openings of the head -- will be vital
eventually, but that must wait until I fly home. The cleansing
of my foul racing gear will also have to wait till I arrive
home. My shorts, shirt, and socks are currently limning a
permanent mud oval around the heretofore virgin-white bathroom
sink in Wolverhampton’s Ely House Hotel. My running shoes,
meanwhile, will be left behind when I check out in the morning
-- they’re too emotionally scarred to ever run an honest mile
again. As if all that isn’t enough, a glance in the mirror shows
a man with a face lined and gray, at