One Day Closer

It still hurts.

A year after spraining my ankle, two weeks out from the marathon, and one workout closer than last year, the damn thing still hurts. It's not a real pain, certainly nothing worth going to the doctor for (excepting you assglider), but it's still there, one of a litany of pains that do not go away, in a body that before I took out that ankle, had never really been hurt.

I felt so good on my last long run last year, strong and fresh, I felt as good running as I ever had, and I had for a couple of weeks at that point. I only hit that peak once before, the previous spring and not since. Last year it was easy. I turned it on in September, after a horrible NY 1/2 marathon, and a month later I felt great.

This year...I've had to push myself through every run, I haven't peaked. I've been exhausted sometimes, my calves have ached, I strained my abdomen doing sprints I didn't need to do, and I probably sprained my wrist. I ran out of gas for a couple weeks in August. I think I over trained and then I under trained, and now I just do what I can when I can, and sometimes the results are not bad, and sometimes they are. I'm tired, and I can't wait for the marathon to be over and for running to be fun again. It hasn't been for a while.

And I sort of think, because this is the optimist I am, that I have a hell of a marathon in me this year. I think this because this is the marathon I was training for last year and it is the one I am training for now. This is the marathon I was ready to run 50 weeks ago even if it is obvious that I cannot run that race at this point.

And I sort of think that I'm going to crash and burn hard and this is ok too.

One way or the other, I'll be out there again next year no matter what I may say now. This despite the fact that I hate the marathon, I hate the distance, I hate the training, and I hate the commitment they entail.

This doesn't mean I don't like running, and I mention this because someone else did recently. I'm just talking about the marathon, and despite the fact that I hate it (did I mention that?),I respect it, I respect it very much.

Any experienced distance runner can most likely roll out of bed in halfway decent shape and do a half marathon, generally the next shortest distance people race. Most people can even approach their best times even when they do not have their best running days. There's just a larger margin of error to work with.

The marathon on the other hand is something that can kick your ass on any given day, particularly if you have not trained well. Doing your very best at the marathon is an extraordinary thing, to do it the best you can, takes a lot of things going your way. You have to cross-train, you have to avoid injury and sickness, you have to have a little luck along the way. It helps if the weather is just right.

A lot has to go right, and that has not been the case for me this year.

So, no matter what happens in less than two weeks, I'll be out there again next year. Even if I run a 3:44, and that is my unreasonable high performance goal, I'll still need to know how well I can do if a whole lot more goes right.

And that's where I am one day closer than I got last year.