Driving on

Another week, another 34 miles. We… actually just 30 for me so far… but Saturday’s 4 will make it 34. Then we start the next with a 12 miler. Yahoo! Can I say that? Or is that copyrighted now? You never know with the web, click you mouse freaky and you may find someone already patented that freaky click.

There were a couple of interesting points in my running this week. On Tuesday I started running and as soon as I reached the edge of the field near my house, I came to a dead stop. It was weird… because I didn’t even think about it before it happened. So there I was, pondering, what the heck am I doing? No, not by stopping, but running! The weather was crappy, my knee was hurting, I had a cold and few about 2 seconds I considered just taking a month off and picking it up fresh. I could… it would fit into my schedule and give my knee time to recover… but NO!!! That is crazy talk. I quickly started running again and never looked back.

The Wednesday as I headed out for the 8 miler it started POURING. I know I have said it was raining on some of my previous runs… but this was apocalyptic stuff! It is literally flooding here. Not at my house… but near some rivers. I think the county declared a disaster or something. And there I am, heading off in the torrential rain. I swear I was honked at once, and another time someone yelled ‘idiot’ or something as nice out of their car or truck window. Another time there was a truck stopped at the light and the window rolled down and someone shouted something bizarre… like some weird outburst you would only let out when no one was around. I locked eyes with the driver and she seemed rather shocked that it came out of her. I guess it was as if my stupidity was causing the dunces to shout and jump for joy. Either that or they just expected that no one in their right mind would actually BE there in that rain.

That 8 miles was hard. I was dark by the time I finished… and I was so tired and cold and there was so much ruble on the paths that more than once I almost fell. My ankle twisted as I was approaching a crosswalk and I fell against the pole. Not exactly graceful, but I needed the pole to hold me up at that point.

During that run I just kept thinking that during my marathon I will have a whole chorus of little devils on my shoulder trying to convince me to give up… to stop or to walk. During those last six miles, they will all be there, and I must figure out how to line them up and knock them off, one by one.