Have you hugged your amphipod pouch today?

Lost:  One Amphipod Micropack Land Sport, Black, 3+ years old, lightly coated in salt.  Last seen at the end of a 16 mile run on Friday.

I have a few essentials I am never without during a run.  These are 1. Water bottle 2. Hat 3. Amphipod pouch (the only way to carry keys & money on the run).  I went about collecting these three things on my way out this morning and couldn't find the pouch.  Hmm.  Well, I was running late and was planning on taking my camera, so I grabbed my 4-bottle Fuel Belt holder which works great to carry cameras.

When I came home, I went looking for the pouch.  It wasn't in the little wicker basket in which I store all my running knick-knacks.  It wasn't on the dining room table where I normally drop my stuff when I first walk in the door from a run.  I went downstairs and tossed the car around a bit.  Not there, either.  I was starting to panic a little.  

I am the type of person who hates to misplace something.  I'm not one of those people who lets it go and hopes it turns up later.  I cannot get to sleep at night knowing something is missing.  I have since retraced my steps on Friday after my long run (iced my ankle after the run, maybe it's in the FREEZER?, put away towels, maybe its in the LINEN CLOSET?, filled Mario's hay bin, maybe it's buried in the HAY?) but have been unlucky.

I have come to accept the fact that it has disappeared into thin air.  I'm fairly certain it made it back into the car when I left the park on Friday but who knows if it decided to bid me adieu on the journey back up to the apartment or threw itself out the window in desperation to latch onto a speedier carrier?

I've had this thing for 3+ years.  I've used it on probably 99.99% of every run I've completed since the day I brought it home.  Easy runs, long runs, 5K's, marathons, snowy runs, scorching runs, bad runs and good runs.  We've run thousands of miles together.  It still looked as good as the day I bought it -- years, runs, and washes and it still looked brand spankin' new!  The thing works so great the company still sells the exact same product.  Sure, I've updated hand-held water bottles and thought about replacing my Fuel Belt for the newer, sleeker models.  But the Amphipod was PERFECTION.

And now it's gone.  Unable to deal with the idea that it was missing I went to two sports stores to buy a new one.  The first one didn't have it in black.  I walked around holding a blue one for a bit, but it didn't feel right.  I felt like I would always be reminded of the day the original ran away.  The second store didn't carry Amphipod (blasphemy!).  Defeated, I came back home and sifted through the car, garage, and apartment again.

I've crowed the virtues of the pouch to many people (I recently bought one for my mom who is now a convert) but I never stopped to really reflect on my pouch.  All that time together and not even a picture to show for it.  I'll be over this soon enough, but wanted to bid a fond mahalo & aloha to my running companion.  Nothing held keys and a subway card quite like you.

I had a good snorgle with the rabbit and feel better.  There was one time Mario went "missing" for about 5 minutes and that was infinitely worse than a whole day searching for the pouch.