Head games

Distance: 5.6 mi

Time: 48:10

The beginning of my “light” week in advance of 24 miles on Saturday started with some serious “hoofing und poofing” as my lungs complained a bit about being put to the test after sitting in a car for 4 1/2 hours yesterday.  My legs chimed in about half way up a big nasty hill and then I got to listen to all the body part bitching for about another mile until I finally got warmed up.  It’s odd that my lungs give me as much guff as they did today.  Normally it’s my legs and hips that complain.  But by the end of the run everything was fine again with the world and I got to enjoy a full lunar eclipse during the run.  It was REALLY cool…  fer a geeky, Star Trek watchin’, aliens are out there, nerd like me…!  It was beautiful.

We get beads for special occasions like when more than 100 people run or its really hot or really cold or raining, etc.  so the regulars were pushing our “bead master” to give us a special bead for running during an eclipse.  I don’t think it worked, but it was funny.  Just another special moment that I would never have had if I weren’t up at 5am for a run.

My friend Kathy overstressed herself on her long run last Saturday.  She was trying to make 22 miles and ended up bonking at 20 AND hurting her knee in the process.  She is REALLY frustrated, upset and afraid this is going to keep her from running her marathon.  Although nobody but her knows how bad it really is, I tried to comfort her a bit and make sure that she rests it.  She has trained very well to this point and will have no problem with the marathon distance unless she pushes too hard and hurts herself even more.

This, for me, brings up a recurring runners nightmare about training all of this time only to have the wheels come off on the last lap.  If I get hurt IN the marathon, that just makes for great war stories later (maybe even with scars!)…  But I am terrified of doing something stupid days to weeks before the event that takes me out.  Yes, I know that it’s all a part of the journey and there will be other marathons if this one doesn’t work out, but when I see somebody go down like this it makes me extra careful about where I step when I run…

I have had several people now question my sanity for wanting to run full marathon distance BEFORE the marathon.  Maybe it is crazy… but for me it’s a psychological thing.  I just want to know in my mind going in to the race that I have already bagged that mileage.  I know this means very little, physically, in fact it might even be bad for me, but I need the confidence.  I need to be able to look back in recent memory, not 12 years ago, and see me running this distance.  It might seem a bit silly, but I think it’s all a part of that “I’m not a runner yet” mentality I carry with me.  If I can run marathon distance without support…  THEN… I can call myself a runner.