Apple, save the iPod!!

The Apple iPod is no longer in production, and runners everywhere are feeling the pinch, declaring their love for the technology on social media. We too feel your pain.

I don’t remember the shoes I wore when I ran the Boston Marathon in 2012. I don’t remember my shorts and can’t recall what shirt I was wearing. I know it was hot outside and I know I gave the race away within the first ten kilometres and I know that the fault was all mine, that there was no problem with anything I was wearing. My watch worked. My shoes were terrific. My shirt wicked just fine. I just had nothing left in me after 10K. I went out too fast. Trained too much. Cramped up quickly. And was walking before I hit Heartbreak Hill. Then I turned on my iPod.

I have one of those little iPods that connects to your shorts and comes with a chord that always gets tangled. When I ordered my iPod whenever that was, 2004, maybe? I was able to get a free inscription and I wrote: “Julie T and the Diamond Explosions,” which I always thought would be a cool name of a band for my wife. When the race was lost and I was on the verge of crying—no lie, I’d trained for Boston for months, made the trip with my young family and now, here I was, walking the world’s most famous racecourse in the sun, the day was nearly lost. And then something very peculiar happened. I made up my mind not to let it be. I had my health. I had my family. I was in Boston! I reached into the back pocket of my New Balance shorts and pulled on my iPod and turned on Pearl Jam, doing Nothing As it Seems, loud and live.

I straightened my back. Wiped off my brow. And slowly began to jog. Then play air guitar. Then run, collecting high fives for my efforts as I reclaimed my morning. I don’t have those shorts anymore. Certainly don’t have the sneakers. But I’ll be back on the course in Boston some day. With my Julie T iPod in my pocket, ready—come hell or high water—to control my destiny.

Apple, the iPod isn’t just a piece of technology. It’s a piece of our lives.