Off the Road Again

I'm out of the marathon again. I hurt my foot on my last long run - too stubborn to stop when I should have and I didn't think it was that bad and when the hell would I have rescheduled for anyway? But it's been a week now and I still can't run and there just isn't any room between now and Oct. 8 for any setbacks. And who's to say I wouldn't injure myself the same, or worse, if I persisted?

(Not sure what the foot injury is. My ever-lurking plantar fasciitis flared up again but something more has happened on top - at first I thought it was a bad bruise but now I'm wondering if it's not a stress fracture. I'll have to go in and see.)

I should not have attempted marathon training again in the first place. I did not have the base I needed for my long runs, especially not for making the kind of mileage jumps I was attempting and needed to do with my late start and then missing three due to vacation and work commitments. I'd been able to do the first couple of jumps but it had been the equivalent of a new race-day effort each time - without the post-race recovery. And I'd known that, and still wasn't willing to make the changes I needed to make it all happen. Because that would have meant completely reorienting my life to be solely marathon-focused for these three months and I just haven't been willing to do so. Because, you know, I have a life. That I like.

So why didn't I stop before hurting myself? Stupid pride. I don't like to be seen as someone who doesn't follow through on commitments at work. (I'm actually quite happy to pull out of things - with the required amount of agonizing about it first - in nearly any other area of my life.) And while Chicago Lights is technically not the same organization as the church, and being part of the team is not part of my work responsibilities, I work closely enough to Chicago Lights and have enough colleagues on the team with me to feel uncomfortable about quitting. Again.

Of course the question is, why did I start again in the first place? Because I had quit once before, in the spring, before the real training and excitement got started, without any real bruise to my pride.

So here's the backstory. I quit in the spring because I was pregnant. And then miscarried. And that's a whole other story for another time. For now I'm just going to say that once my body recovered from all that - and once we decided we were done trying - once running began to feel natural to me again, the way it used to - and once my body felt like mine again, after more than two years of not quite feeling that way - then yes, it seemed like the most natural and wonderful thing in the world to take up the commitment I'd made last fall along with the hope and promise of what marathons can be.

Only, this time, it wasn't. I'd left it too late in the season, but also, time has moved on since my last marathon (which wasn't that pretty anyway). I'm older of course, but more to the point I have other commitments now, other challenges that move and excite me. I'm not going to say "never again" to the idea of a marathon, not like I did after my last one - but I think a lot would have to shift in my life to make that the main focus again. Which it would have to be (especially since I'm older).

I learned something from those first couple of weeks of training, though. I had forgotten how much running means to me. Not just how much joy it brings me, but how much I need it (or some other intense physical activity) to feel like my best self. I don't like to throw around phrases like "running is my anti-depressant" because I never want to disparage medication for those who need it. But for me, running really is an anti-depressant, and an anti-anxiety treatment as well. And so while I can function perfectly fine, mostly, without that kind of activity, when I am running hard on a regular basis (but not too hard, clearly), I am a much better person. Certainly a happier one.

With that in mind, along with the memory of the fierce satisfaction I had mid-summer and the sense of being right in my body and my head, I know I need to keep running and in particular, racing. I'm looking forward to going back to my favorite distances, 10-milers and 15Ks, where I can push myself hard on an early weekend morning and then go nicely long on a weekend - without wrecking myself in the process. But for now it's about resting and healing, the start of the school year and all the intense activity of fall and early winter that comes with having kids - sports! holidays! recitals! more sports! - and digging in to the other things that move me.

I wish I could say older and wiser but if I were wiser my foot wouldn't hurt,
Annie