WTF was I thinking?

                So, I’ve reached the “What the fuck was I thinking” part of my marathon training. 

                Let me bring you up to speed. Early in the fall, I took some time off from running because life sort of sucked and I was worn out. I kept going to the gym, but my heart wasn’t in it. I ellipted, I cybexed, I lifted some weights. I sometimes worked up a sweat. It was all just bleah bleah bleah. Yawn. 

                Then one day, winter just over that next hill, I got on the treadmill and started up again. First timidly and wicked slowly, for just a half hour at a time. Then after a few weeks, less slowly and forty-five minutes, then an hour, then seventy-five minutes then ninety then I did a silly thing and signed up for marathon number thirteen. I’m still not sure why. Maybe I needed a goal? Maybe I missed my blisters?   

                I plotted out a schedule, marked up a calendar with running routes, filled my shuffle with all new songs, and started out strong. Gym six days a week, three days of that running. A month later, astoundingly, I was running fourteen miles indoors. The miracle wasn’t the distance. The miracle was that I didn’t die of boredom. Running in place is only fun if you’re a hamster, and even then maybe not. 

                A few weeks ago, I took my considerably less than hot potential marathon bod outside for my first long run on pavement since September. I’m trotting along to INXS, happy in my own little 80s Aquanet world, feeling all long-legged and Kenyan and I’m winning the Boston Marathon and teaching everyone who ever put me down a lesson in yeah you got that, I AM awesomeness. Then I catch a glimpse of myself in a storefront window. Turns out, I am the living embodiment of the Travelocity gnome. Truly.  

                Still, even with that cruel reality check, and with temps in the glacial single digits, I aced that fifteen-mile run which was pretty much all ninety degree mountains no lie. That’s how tough I am. Then two weeks ago I did the same route, plus an extra two miles just for giggles. Yup. Seventeen miles straight up.  

                 

                Then, twelve weeks of training still ahead, I was done. My head had no desire to run anymore. My body rebelled too. My knees creaked. My lower back went all 95- year- old lady on me. My right hip screamed. 

                 I knew what to do. I took some time off, which in marathon-speak means I cross-trained. I ellipted. I cybexed. I gave myself a break. Instead of focusing on my heart rate and pace, I watched Jeopardy and called out lots of wrong answers. I checked out the hot guys. I sang, mostly to myself.

                Eventually, I started feeling alive again and once, for a half minute, I considered running. Unfortunately, I was near a computer at the time so without thinking twice I sat down and signed up for a race which happens to be one of the godawfullest hilliest races in New England and it is tomorrow. 

                What the fuck was I thinking? 

                I’m babying my hip. I’m planning on taking it more slowly than my usual slow. The run is 18.6 miles long. I have done this run before. It is not a run I love. But I have a plan.

                I’m going to smile the whole way and make sure to shout enthusiastic thank yous to all the race volunteers.  I’m going to sing out loud to Echo and the Bunnymen and Bruce. I’m going to remember that this  -- this What the fuck was I thinking phase – too shall pass. It’s just part of the process. 

                I’m going to trust that process. I’ll remember other times I bit off more than I should have been able to chew, and ended up having myself quite a lovely meal.  I might swear a little. Or a lot.

                I will remember that in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. I will remember to think how lucky am I? 

                I mean really. The biggest problem in my life right now is getting through a little race. I’m not living in the slums of Calcutta. I’m not hiding myself and my books from the Taliban. I’m not sick, except for maybe this silly part of me that likes to whine poor me every now and then. 

                Seriously. Tomorrow I get to wake up in a warm house. I get to take my overfed over-educated aching butt to a race that no one but me cares if I run.  

               When you come right down to it, I’ve got nothing to complain about and everything to celebrate. 

                Honestly. 

                What the fuck was I thinking?