If it were easy, everyone would do it. That’s a favorite motto, and good for training as well as race day. Today was a day – well. It wasn't easy.
Coach gave me options given The Toenail Situation: pool run or elliptical. Huh, funny how much better my foot felt today given those alternatives. So I gave the toe a lecture, told the husband and baby that I’d be back really soon if it hurt, not so soon if it looked like I’d actually be able to run on it. And since I was nursing something of a hangover, bribed my inner slacker and the toe with the promise of a quick stop at Little Buddy on the way home – 16 miles deserves a crumb bun.
I don’t know what happens to me on long runs. I start to do math. And redo math. And then redo that math. It all has to do with distance. “How many miles will I have run by the time I get to x”. The fact that the park is a strange distance around means that no matter how many times I add up those numbers, I need to do it again in five minutes.
Anyway, at least 45 times on my run, I calculated that by the time I got to x street, a little bit more than half a mile from home, I’d be over the 16 mile mark. No question: the run was a slog, but I did it and stopped and got my crumb bun, and headed towards the home stretch.
Finally, that corner was in sight. Somehow, despite feeling like I was in a death shuffle, I was still moving forward. I passed two women who gave me that look – the “are you sure you’re going to be ok” look. Yeah ladies, let’s see you run sixteen miles with a hangover and a throbbing big toe. They may not be pretty, but they are miles in the bank, as my friends like to say. And then, slow motion…
Uneven sidewalk. Bad toe. Ow. I sense myself suspended in air, and not in a good way. Hands go up to protect my face, one holding the paper bag with crumb bun. I land on it (very cushy). And my chest (pavement, not so cushy). The two chicks turn around and come to make sure I didn’t collapse with a heart attack (no really, I’ll be fine – at least that’s what I would have told them but couldn’t -- wind knocked out of me).
Full on splat.
And the worst part is that I hadn’t actually reached the corner. The corner from which it is an unrelenting and mean, solid half mile uphill to my block. The corner which the entire run, I had said if you get there, you can walk the rest, implying of course that stopping any sooner is a workout DNF. The corner which I had told myself if I ran to there, I’d have earned a crumb bun.
So I dusted myself off. Decided I’d rather be surprised in the shower by the locations of roadrash than look now. As for the crumb bun, the fall had sheared off not only the brown paper bag, but also the wax paper liner. It was smushed, but still relatively intact. I gathered it up in the torn paper.
And jogged home. Past the corner. Up the hill. Down my block. Where, in perfect tune with the day so far, my boys had gone to the park and I was locked out of the house.
