Don't Let Pain Stop You

As I mentioned in my last post, I ran a marathon 8 days ago. My body was obliterated afterwards. I had a lot of trouble going up and down the stairs. Everything hurt. About all I could do was lie in bed all of the next day.

I still got up and ran 5 miles the day after my marathon. Then I ran again the following day. And the day after that. And the day after that. I've run every single day since my marathon: A total of 42 miles in the seven days after that Sunday.

On Saturday (2 days ago), I did 6 sets of deadlifts. Then I ran 10 miles. Yesterday, even though my glutes were fried, I ran 7 miles and biked 12.

Most of my friends told me I should "rest". To let my body "heal". To take a few days off. But I wasn't injured. I was just sore. Really really sore. But being tired and hurting isn't a reason to be lazy. It's an excuse.

I don't let pain stop me.

I'm not saying this to show off. And most of you will likely think I'm crazy. Fine. While I was doing my 80 Day Deadlift Challenge, I lifted 6 days a week, and ran 6 or 7 days a week. And what I discovered is that the body is an amazing machine that is capable of doing anything you ask it to. Oh sure it will complain, via pain, soreness, and exhaustion. But once you get going, that strength will be there.

Running a sub 5 minute pace in this photo despite being tired.
Photo Cr. Geoffrey Brown

It is important to listen to your body, to avoid injury. Over the Christmas break, I ran too much and injured my calves. But I kept running (gently), and the pain vanished after less than a week. But many folks take the "listen to your body" mantra a little too much too heart. My body almost never "wants" to exercise. And it almost always wants to eat. If I "listened" to my body all the time, I would go back to being a fat bum who just drinks whiskey on the couch all day long.

What I pay attention to - and what gets me going every day despite being in pain - is routine. Routine. I've talked about routine before. It's magic. Seriously. But the only way to make routine keep working for you is that you have to follow your routine, every day. Because if you take a break, even for only one day, your brain starts to think, "well I took off one day and it wasn't a big deal. Maybe I'll take this day off too. Just relax and eat. That sounds nice, doesn't it?"

As long as I'm physically capable of getting up and getting out the door, I will do so. Pain doesn't matter. A friend recently shared this image with me. I usually only post pics that I or a friend have taken, but I love this too much not to share it.

I <3 Pain! Photo Cr..... Um Spongebob I guess

The poster on the wall is amazing. I spent about 20 minutes online looking for one just like it. I'll probably have to make my own. And hang it on my wall. Because that's the kind of a$$hole I am.

But seriously. You could go through your whole life taking the easy way out. Taking a break when the going gets tough. Giving up on your plans and dreams because they seem too hard. "Listening to your body." Real success takes brutally hard work. Nobody would tell Michael Phelps that he needs to take a day off of swimming. Nobody even questions his dedication. So how come it's ok for people to question my dedication?

I get it. They're trying to be helpful. But they're not pointing out my limitations. They're pointing out their own. But just because they can't run 8 miles on sore legs doesn't mean they should tell me that I can't. That's doing me a disservice. Giving my sneaky brain yet more ammo to get me to live the lazy life of my ancestors. Instead of telling me what I can't do, maybe these folks should be pushing themselves to see what they're capable of.

I think they'd be amazed.

I bet this guy never looked for excuses to surrender.
Painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861).
Photo taken at Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Run for the Red Marathon (Almost Killed Me)

My last three posts led up to this race. One on overtraining, one on tapering, and one on anticipation. A pretty standard pattern when it comes to marathons. Maybe I should've also written a post about race weekend overeating, because holy cheesecake did I gorge myself. And I'd like to say all that hard work, stress, and madness resulted in an epic race.

It was epic. Just not in the way I was hoping for.

But let me start from the beginning.

We were happy. Before we ran.

I left work early on Friday so that I would have plenty of time to get down to the hotel in the Poconos. I hate reserving hotels. Actually, I suck at pretty much any "real life" things. Normal folks are organized. They plan far ahead and get everything out of the way so they can read a book and drink some wine, content in their own "adult-ness". I had scanned through the list of suggested hotels on the race website and picked the one whose name I recognized. I didn't even check how close it was to the start, or if it was even in the right state.

After successfully reserving my hotel, I had thought, "that wasn't so bad; I could totally be a functional adult." That is until a week later when some a$$hole stole my credit card number and started buying USB hard drives like the dollar had collapsed and computer peripherals were the new currency. That tapped me out on being an adult.

Adulting is hard.

Anyway, when I got home from work, I didn't pack, or do anything useful. I just lay in bed for about an hour. Then when Geoffrey got home from work, I went to dinner with him, his kids, and Meghan. She was visiting for the weekend, making sure to be there for my marathon. Awesome lady.

The restaurant somehow kept messing up our order, so that our one order of calamari turned into three. And I ate almost all of them, on top of whatever else I ordered. Oh, and I should mention that I had eaten a tub of ice cream the previous night, after an absolutely terrible 4 mile run. I don't screw around when it comes to carb loading. I don't even remember how far over budget I was. The calorie counter in my app spun like the national deficit.

The drive down was easy enough. I listened to This American Life podcast. In the first episode, Ira Glass' voice was hoarse with a cold. In the next one, someone covered for him because he was sick. I found that funny for some reason. I got to the hotel at about 9pm. I immediately went to the hotel restaurant and had a few beers while listening to really terrible karaoke. I did not sing.

I got to my room and exploded my bag all over the floor. Then I watched commercials for about an hour. The only time I watch cable TV anymore is in hotel rooms. There are no actual shows or movies. Just commercials. On all 80 channels. I went to sleep.

My kokeshi doll looks out the window.

I got up at 9:30 the next morning, which I think is the latest I've slept in since the New Year. I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was no karaoke. Just a single excessively friendly waiter who seemed very excited about me and my omelet. After that I went to the marathon Expo at the high school in Stroudsburg. I got my packet, and signed Geoffrey up for the half marathon.

All expos look the same, really.

He didn't know he was running the half until the day before. At dinner, I had told him that I would pay for him to run and he didn't have a choice. And after two pitchers of beer, he was powerless to refuse. Races are no fun unless your friends suffer too. I walked around the expo, bought some stuff I didn't need, and then ran 2 easy miles around the high school.

I had lunch at a really nice pub across the street from the hotel ("The Original Pocono Pub"). That was the only place I ate for the rest of the weekend. The waitress called me "sweetie" and brought me lots of beer, coffee, and greasy food, and I loved her for it. When I went back to my hotel room, I considered doing something useful on my laptop. I finally gave up and alternated between napping and watching more commercials on the TV.

"Lunch"

Meghan and Geoffrey arrived at around 6:30 and we immediately went to dinner at the same place. Nothing new here: Just a f@#kton more food and booze. I briefly worried that the extra ten pounds in mu gut would impact my race performance. Then I drowned my worries with more alcohol. We had a great time.

I showed them the hotel restaurant so they could keep drinking, and then I went to bed before 9. I was woken up a couple hours later when they returned, quite buzzed. Meghan immediately fell comatose in bed. Geoffrey and I stayed up for another hour, drinking wine out of paper cups, taking photos of ourselves, and just generally making fools of ourselves. We went to bed way too drunk and way too late.

The night before a marathon is the best night to party.

My alarm woke me up at 4:20am. I did my usual pre-race ritual. I was oddly blasé about the fact that I was going to be running a marathon in less than three hours. Maybe I was still drunk. Geoffrey certainly was. We left the room, an apocalyptic warzone of all our belongings, at about 5:40. Thankfully we had a late checkout. The "do not disturb" sign had been hanging on the door since I'd gotten there.

Me? Still drunk the next day? Naaaah

Meghan wished me luck, made out copiously with Geoffrey, and then went home. Because real life. He and I arrived at Pocono Mountain West High School (quite the mouthful) by 6. We always give ourselves at least an hour before a race to do whatever we need to do. But other than hitting the bathroom as many times as humanly possible, we didn't have much to do except loiter. We ran into a couple of cool runners who knew us by way of a mutual acquaintance. They were both way faster than me.

Welcome... to your doooooom.

Shortly before the race started, I took off my shirt. It was 40 degrees. Everyone else was shivering, despite being dressed appropriately. I looked like I was about to charge across a battlefield screaming my head off. Which maybe I was.

The Marathon.

My goal for the race was to qualify for Boston. This meant I had to run it in 3 hours and ten minutes. But qualifying wasn't enough to guarantee one an entry. So I really had to run it in like 3:07 to be sure. I had picked Run for the Red because it has a huge net downhill, and I thought that meant I would run it super fast and totally meet my goal. I had fantasies dancing in my head of running it in under three hours!

I was very wrong.

Running downhill is great for a few miles, up to a half marathon. But what it does beyond that is it destroys your legs. But the other thing, and the thing you totally couldn't tell by looking at the elevation profile, was that the race had about a thousand little hills, and at least a handful of not-so-tiny hills.

You almost never ran flat. You were either running way too fast, blasting your legs down a huge decline, or you were struggling up a hill. You never got a rhythm going. Your pace and heart rate bounced around like a yoyo hanging off a bumblebee.

Seriously.

The first half felt good. Great even. I flew down the declines, and devoured the hills like they were sweet sweet doughnuts. By halfway, I had set both a personal PR for a half marathon (1:31:31) and a personal 10K PR (42:34). I looked like I was on track. I did spend a few seconds gazing longingly at the half marathon finish as I ran past it. Geoffrey would be crossing that line soon.

I ran solid up until mile 15. And then that was it. My legs were done. What I hadn't noticed before was that most of the big downhills were in the first half, the half I ran fast. The second half had a TON of rolling hills. And my legs were completely and utterly trashed. My quads hurt. My hammies hurt. My glutes hurt. And my calves were nightmares.

Pace went down. Heart rate went up.

I kept telling myself it was just pain, and it meant nothing. I would just push myself and heroically finish despite my suffering. But my legs simply refused to go any faster. At around mile 20 a hail storm passed through, slamming me with wind and ice. I didn't have a shirt on remember.

26.2 miles of pain.

It wasn't all bad. Probably the biggest thing that kept me from sinking into a bottomless depression was the sheer volume of fans and spectators who yelled at me.

"Nice kilt!"

"Nice dress!"
 
"FREEEEDDDOOOOOMMMMM!"

And yes, I yelled that last one back after they did, much to their joy. I pumped my fists to everyone who cheered me on. Despite how awful my body felt, the folks on the sides really kept me going. Making me feel that at least I looked tough, even if I didn't feel it.

By mile 22 I decided that I was going to be an inconsolable depressive black hole for the rest of the day. That I would quit running and sulk for months. Then at mile 24 I decided, "screw you douche. You don't get to wallow in misery. You don't get that luxury. You are going to destroy yourself today, be glad for it, and then go back to running the next day."

Wallowing in misery doesn't hurt you. It hurts your friends. It hurts the people who care about you. It's selfish. And there's no point to it.

This doesn't belong here, but I ran out of room above.

I kept telling myself that I was going to sprint the last few miles. Then the last couple. Then just the last one. I don't know where I thought I was going to get the strength from. My legs weren't cooperating. I did sprint the last 1000 feet, but only because the 3:15 pacer had caught up to me and there was no way I was going to let him beat me.

I crossed the finish line in 3:14:26. I beat my previous PR (set at Wineglass) by........... 4 seconds. After months of training, I had shaved off 4 seconds. A nice woman offered me a space blanket at the end. I said no but she kept holding on to me. I was like, why won't this woman let me go?! She asked, "are you OK?", and that's when I realized that I was weaving around like a blind drunk. I escaped her overly-caring clutches.

Geoffrey was there. He had cheered me on near the end. After he'd finished his half, he'd taken the shuttle back to my car, and driven it to the end so he could watch me finish. An amazing friend, that. He had rushed to get there in time. The walk back to the car was the hardest and most painful walk I've ever had. Geoffrey offered to drive and I agreed by collapsing in the passenger seat.

We ate lunch again at the Pocono Pub. Superb. The same waitress was there again, calling us "sweetie" and graciously smiling as we whined about how hard the race was. A woman at the bar asked, "oh did you run a 10K today?" I said, "no, I ran a marathon. 26.2 miles." I said it nonchalantly, as if it wasn't a challenge just to stand.

Every now and then I have to enjoy a moment of smugness. Why else do we run? Self-improvement? Ha! It's so that a couple times a year, we can feel slightly superior to mere mortals. The rest of the time we just hurt.

Afterwards we each took baths. Geoffrey took a nap. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling in anguish. Then we packed and left. I set the car in cruise control, curled up into a ball in the driver's seat, and steered with one finger.

So much of this. So so much.

We stopped by Galaxy Brewing in Binghamton, one of the best breweries of all time. We tried every single one of their 13 beers. We ate more food. I was delirious with happiness as I jammed my body with heavenly high-gravity beer and brussel sprouts (cooked in yet more beer, it tasted like).

This is how I sign all my receipts. True story.

Then we drove the rest of the way home and quietly died.

Race Day Anticipation

My last post was about Tapering for my race this Sunday. That's less than two days before I'm on the starting line for the Run for the Red marathon in the Poconos! But truth be told, I'm terrible at tapering.

This past weekend, I ran about 16 miles between Saturday and Sunday, including a leg smashing 5K on Mother's Day. Then I bicycled 20 miles with Geoffrey on Monday. Yesterday I ran just 4 easy miles. I should have felt light and airy, my legs suffused with energy. Instead I felt totally exhausted, as if I'd already run a marathon.

Part of the problem is that I've been eating very little this week, "saving up" calories for this weekend.That's because even though I'm running a freakin' marathon - one where I hope to qualify for the Boston Marathon - I still can't get out of the calorie counting head space. But I made up for it by eating about a gallon of ice cream last night, and several gallons of wine. And today I'm going to gorge myself on carbs like an asteroid is about to hit the earth.

"We're all about to die? Sh*t, that means
I can finally eat whatever I want!"

But that's not really the point of this post. Most of the above is just me complaining about how stupid I am.

In addition to suffering through "taper madness", us runners also have to suffer "race day anticipation." This is a yo-yo affect where one minute you think, "I'm going to annihilate this race! I bet I can get under 3 hours! I'm amazing!" And then the next minute thinking, "ugh, I'm going to completely bonk out. I'd be lucky to finish the race in five hours. They'll be scraping my bloated carcass off the pavement, dodging the buzzards that circle above."

I can't gauge how I'll do by how I feel. Because how I feel oscillates faster than a frog on a trampoline. I struggled with an analogy there and that's the best I could come up with. Apparently my writing oscillates too. Like a frog on a...

Anyway.

Anticipation is the worst. And it's not like it changes how I'll run. Either I'll run fast and beat my goal, or I'll trip over a fire hydrant and become famous on Youtube as "guy in kilt misses Boston qualifying time by one second due to hydrant mishap." I'd watch that video.

But I can't help the nerves. There's some evolutionary reason for them. It pumps endorphins into your system so you can fight off a wooly mammoth or something. But you can't exactly stay high on endorphins for a week straight. That's like drinking coffee nonstop every waking minute every day.

Which, I mean, I do. It doesn't help the situation.

This is just from this morning.
Also I'm very wasteful.

I try not to think too much about the race. I try not to think about getting up before 5am and going to the bathroom four times in a row. I try not to think about eating precisely one banana. I try not to think about making sure my watch is fully charged. I try not to think about putting on the exact right clothes for the weather, double knotting my shoes, and checking about 20 times that I didn't forget a sock.

I try not to think about getting to the race around 6am so I have plenty of time to bounce around with a thousand other people and hit the port-o-potties a couple more times. I try not to think about shivering in the cold but resisting putting on more clothes because then I'd be too hot when I run. I try not to think about going up to the start line, realizing I still have half an hour to wait, and then milling around, and repeating that about a dozen times. I try not to think about finding precisely the right starting place within the crowd as 7am finally approaches. I try not to think about that air horn being raised in the air.....

Aaaah, see? I totally failed. Now my heart's palpitating like I just smoked ten cigars.

Also doesn't help calm my nerves.

Normally I'd deal with the anticipation by drinking. But I haven't drunk much this week. Mostly I've been lying in bed thinking, "I'm definitely an alcoholic." I guess I don't go halfway on anything. I either drink too much, or not at all. I either eat too much, or not at all. I either run too much.... Well I haven't gotten to not running yet. But that will be a glorious and beautiful time of my life. No doubt.

But that won't happen until at least after my marathon Sunday. Eek!

You won't have to suffer much anticipation though. I plan on writing about about the race afterwards (probably drunk). And if you don't see my post pop up.... Well then look for me on Youtube.

Tapering

For most normal folks, if they were suddenly told they had to run to run every single day, they would convulse and fall over. If they were then told that for a specific two week period, they would get to rest, it would sound like the most wonderful two weeks of their life.

Those two weeks are called tapering. For most people who aren't runners, those two weeks sound like Runner Christmas. Don't be mistaken.

Tapering is the worst period of a runner's life.

"But why?!" You exclaim. After working so hard for so long, you finally get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. You finally get to heal. You finally get to reconnect with friends you haven't seen in months. Isn't that wonderful?!

What normal people don't understand is that runners are insane.

The only thing that keeps that insanity in check is running. When we run, all is right with the world. Nothing matters. Yesterday - literally yesterday - I got an alert that someone had stolen my credit card number and made a bunch of purchases. I gave zero shits. I had just finished an awesome speed workout and all of life seemed totally fine. I talked to the fraud guy on the phone while I prepared to roast some cauliflower. He was very nice and the matter was settled in minutes.

When you run, you are immune to stress.

But when you taper, all of your stress and worries come roaring back. You're sitting there, looking through the same list of romantic comedies from the 80's on Netflix, thinking, "I would kill someone to just go for a run right now." But you can't! Because you have a marathon in a couple weekends, and if you run now, you will fall flat on your face on race day.

It's a double whammy for me because I also count calories. Which means that if I'm running less, I'm eating less. It's actually OK to gain a couple pounds before your race so that you have fuel. But even the slightest hint of ballooning around my mid-section causes me to break out in hives. While I'm tapering, my thought process is, "well if I eat absolutely nothing today, I'll be able to have a beer this weekend."

My diet while I'm tapering.

And all of my runner friends are the same. They all go crazy when they have to taper. That period of rest is one of the rare few times when runners actually feel energetic and want to run. But it's the only time when they can't. And that's torture. Imagine you just had the biggest meal of your life and you're so full that food is oozing out your pores. Then someone offers you cake. Ugh. Now imagine you haven't eaten in three days and then you see cake, but it's just out of reach.

Did your heart rate just speed up a little? Yeah.

And while I'm not running, I start thinking about the long list of things I've wanted to accomplish that I haven't. A part of me thinks, "well now you have the time and energy to do all those things." But I don't. I just stare at the ceiling, calculating how far I can run that day and still be considered tapering. Because after I've run, I have an excuse for not doing anything else.

And I don't feel bad about it.

Running is catharsis. We're all riddled with guilt, and stress, and angst, and a whole bunch of other bullshit. Running is a magic pill that just cures everything. It's hard to believe for non-runners, but it totally is. But if you run seriously, you have to race. It's hard to break yourself every single day if there isn't some goal you're shooting for. But if you race, that means you have to taper.

"I went for a run when I was supposed to be tapering."

I could probably make an analogy here using competitive cake eaters.... But all this tapering has fried my brain. In any event, the thing that makes tapering tolerable is knowing that at the end of it, you get to run a race and NUKE your previous record. I mean, hopefully.

Personally, my goal at my next marathon (Run for the Red in the Poconos) is to qualify for Boston next year. So I have an extra incentive to do this tapering thing right. Although I did an intense speed workout yesterday and have been eating nothing but cauliflower and pickles for the past couple days, so I don't know.

Maybe I just suck at everything. But it's ok. I'm going for a run at lunchtime, and I'll feel better after that...

I prefer to create my own shitty memes.

Overtraining

This week I've just been feeling terrible. Not sick. Not injured. Just generally shitty. I'm used to being tired from running, but this is a pervasive sort of crappiness that's extra crappy. And I finally figured out what's going on.

I've been overtraining.

Two weekends ago I ran a half marathon. And it was great! Then I ran 55 miles in the seven days afterwards. In the 4 days from Thursday to Sunday, I ran 12 miles, 8 miles, 8 miles, and 13 miles. Oh, and somewhere in the midst of that, one of my students was promoted to black belt. Which involved over 3 hours of beating him near to death. Luckily he was maid of pure titanium.
 

Experts in not dying.

On Monday I ran a comparatively short 6 miles, and struggled to run under a 10 minute pace. On Tuesday I ran just 4 miles, and felt like I was trying to run through pavement rather than on top of it. Yesterday I ran 3 miles. Three! And it was hard. Like the first time I ever ran 3 miles as a fastass. Slow, plodding.... Just plain gross.

It's the peak of my marathon training. I have a little over a week left of killing myself before I get to start tapering. Sweet sweet tapering. Most runners hate tapering. It drives them insane. But right now it sounds like naps and cupcakes. Just all the nicest things in the world.

So how do I know I've been overtraining? Because I have all the symptoms.

The first one is fatigue. It doesn't matter how much I sleep, or rest, or if I'm just sitting. I'm just super tired. I wake up tired. There's no ups and downs throughout the day. Just all down. Walking is hard. Coffee doesn't spruce me up. It just makes me jittery. Even typing is exhausting.

My muscles are sore, and refuse to get unsore. I only did 3 miles yesterday, but today I feel like I ran a marathon. My shoulders are sore. I guess from carrying grocery bags? My forearms are sore from all this rampant typing. My legs feel like they're on fire. All the healing faeries in my body are on strike.

My heart rate is crazy. I woke up this morning with my heart racing. I could feel the blood blasting through my veins. It was a bizarre feeling, like my heart was pumping lava. I took my pulse and it was somewhere in the realm of "about to have a heart attack." I finally got out of bed because I was worried the blankets would catch fire.

And the thirst! I was thirsty all night. I kept waking up to drink water. My mouth felt like a desert. Not a dessert. I wish there was a dessert in my mouth. No. A desert. Dry. Other adjectives. But mostly dry. So thirsty. I'm drinking so much water right now that my stomach feels like a swimming pool. This post would be done already if I didn't have to pee so much.

I drank this in about an hour.

Then there's the mental symptoms. Before I realized what was going on, I wondered, why the hell do I hate myself so much right now? I was feeling depressive, and super irritable. I mean, I'm always hard on myself. But it got to a ridiculous level. Like I would have trouble operating a door handle and would berate myself for being the most worthless human in the world. I thought, "Gah! I can't even open a f#@*king door! I hope a truck hits me and rids the world of this mentally challenged douchebag."

Yeah, not good.

Part of the problem was that I didn't eat enough food early this week, especially protein. My body is in a catabolic state. I'm not exactly sure what that means. I think my body is trying to eat itself to keep itself alive. Which doesn't totally make sense. But I ain't no scientist. I attacked this issue head on last night. How?

I ate an atrociously massive amount of food.

Geoffrey's sexy lady friend, Meghan (I asked and she says I can use her actual name!) made chocolate chip cookies last night. And I ate all of them. Not some of them. All of them. She made cod. I ate that too. I was already drinking beer. But they had opened wine, so I drank that too. I ate a Klondike bar. I ate, like, so many peanuts. I can't even remember everything I jammed into my face.

On Monday I ate about 2000 calories. On Tuesday I had 2500. Yesterday I ate over 5000 calories. Five. Thousand. On a Wednesday. I kept trying to go to bed. And Meghan and Geoffrey said, "nooooo, stay with us! Eat more cookies! Drink more wine!" And I did.

The last picture of me looking skinny.

Usually I get pissed at myself for overeating. But I'm thankful I did. My body desperately needed the calories. And despite all my complaining above, I actually feel a lot better today. My legs are still sore. But knowing why I've been feeling down, and eating enough food to save all the starving children in Africa has made me feel a lot better.

As usual I don't have any great advice. I don't really write anything useful in my blog. It's mostly just vanity. "Look at me! I run and write and take pictures and stuff!" The advice in this case is kind of obvious though.

Rest. Drink water. Sleep. Eat (a lot). Rest more. Maybe don't run 20 miles. I'm going to try to do all that. Try. I kind of suck at doing the smart thing. Already I'm punishing myself for my kingly feast by only consuming seltzer and pickles today. And I'll run today. And tomorrow. And the day after. So yeah. Terrible at giving advice, and extra terrible at following it.

There's a great possibility that next week I'll write a blog that says, "my legs fell off. They literally fell off." So look forward to that!

"I always look forward to your demise."

How to Run When You Don't Feel Like It

On Saturday I had to do a 22 mile run. I didn't want to but I had to. My marathon is only a little over a month away (Run for the Red), and I want to qualify for Boston. That means I didn't have the luxury of taking off a long run just because I was tired. Tired and whiny.

I'm usually tired. And sore. And at least a couple parts of my body are in pain at any given time (right now it's my lower back and, randomly, my right shoulder). So I usually don't care if I'm tired. I just make up for it with more whining.

But because I'm stupid, I ran 10 very hilly miles on the Thursday before. And then I ran another 6 on Friday. Saturday morning my body was devastated. Geoffrey had invited me to run with him and his sexy lady friend that day. But I knew there was no way in heck I was going to keep up with him at his usual 9:00 - 9:30/mile pace for over 20 miles.

So I told him that I felt "like being alone with my thoughts" and went running on my own while the two of them still slept. That wasn't a lie. But as I mentioned, the bigger reason was that I was just too destroyed to run anything other than "really slow". And I went out while they slept so they couldn't guilt me into going with them. Or lure me with hard root beer (which is a dangerous substance by the way).

Had it been any other day, I would've just done a short run and then not eaten too much for the rest of the day. But lying there in bed Saturday morning, my legs on fire, I knew I had no choice. I didn't think about the run.

I just thought of getting out of bed. That was my only goal. To get up. It seemed challenging. Really challenging. But doable.

Get out of bed.

I did that. I was vertical. I immediately felt accomplished. There's a sense of freedom and empowerment that comes from getting up off a warm and cozy bed. The cool air touches your skin and reminds you that you're alive.

"We feel plenty alive, thank-you."

My next goal was to put on my running gear. That's it. Just put it on. Are you going running? My body asks me. No, I reply. I just like these short shorts. They make me feel giggly.

Get dressed.

So there I am in my room, wearing my running stuff. I'm not thinking ahead. I'm just laying out very tiny little goals and accomplishing them. Creating a motivating pattern of minor successes. And just wearing my running stuff makes me feel better. A sort of memory infuses them. By a similar token, it's easier for me to break bricks when I'm wearing my karate uniform (you can see I'm a big fan of self injury).

The next step was to go outside. This was a tough one. My quads hurt abominably, and walking down the steps was painful. I made heavy use of the handrails. I can't understate here how much my body oozed agony. Once outside I would feel better. Everything would be flat after that.

Go outside.

I still didn't think about the 22 miles. Instead I picked a 5 mile loop that I liked. My only goal was to run 5 miles. That was it. I even told myself that if I felt really awful, I could quit and I'd be close to home. But 5 miles wasn't bad. I could do 5 miles on sore legs.

Just Run 5 miles.

And that loop had lots of street corners. And intersections. And turns. Many many little milestones to break up my loop even further. The traffic that morning was terrible. Usually this is a nuisance. But on Saturday I was thankful for the traffic. Because I felt accomplished every time I dodged a bunch of cars without dying.

Many tiny little goals. Many tiny little accomplishments. All adding up. Some part of me knew I was just tricking my brain. That when I came down to it, I was pushing my broken body to run 22 miles. But I didn't care. I only thought about those tiny little goals.

And I did it. I ran the loop once. I felt good. I told myself I just had to do it one more time. I did it one more time. And then another time. I felt happier and happier with each completed loop. On the last loop I felt downright elated. I reminded myself that I was on my final loop. Oh sure I had to do a couple more miles, but that was just a couple extra streets. No big deal.

It would be a lot easier to just live somewhere scenic.

On that last loop, it started hailing. Hard, fast, sharp balls of ice. And the wind was insane. The hail was flying in sideways, smashing me in the face. But I didn't care. I was so happy to be almost done that I barely even noticed the hail. Everyone around me was running in panic, uselessly holding newspapers over there heads. Not me. I ran like the weather didn't exist.

And then I was done. 

The run felt short. And it felt fast. Even though I ran it at a ponderously slow ten and a half minute pace. That was probably the slowest I'd run since I started training for the marathon. But it also felt like the quickest 22 miles I'd ever run. Because at no point did it seem like it was any more than just 5 miles.

I had finished. I was honestly surprised. But I was ecstatic too. After that I could eat and drink whatever I wanted, and just relax for the rest of the day. And I did just that. And it was amazing.

I'm sure you've heard the advice before to break up big goals into manageable bite-sized chunks. Instead of losing 50 pounds, just lose 5. Instead of writing a whole book, just write one chapter. Instead of adopting all the cats, just adopt 1.

I don't usually bother. I do the things that I feel I have to, no matter how hard they seem. But that Saturday was extra hard. When I broke it up into tiny little missions, it became a lot easier.

Give it a shot. 

Go forth and run.