Well, today really sucked like the mother of all Suck Town. I am tired. I am distracted. I didn't even bother to lay my running clothes out last night. There wasn't any iced coffee in the fridge this morning, and I still haven't washed the pot from the last brewing, so I couldn't make any more. (At 6:00 AM, I considered taking a nip of the Kahlúa Coffee Cream in my fridge. That’s when you know you might actually have a coffee dependency problem.) The weather looked like it would be cold, so I layered - but it was actually hot, and wet. I didn't put my hair in its clip right so it kept falling down in my eyes. My iPod played bad songs that didn’t drown out the negative self-generated soundtrack in my head...
From the minute I set foot on the Lower Loop I was telling myself how unhappy I was. I hate to run. I really do hate this. Why am I doing this? How will I ever run 26.2 miles? This is ridiculous and now I'm setting myself up not only to fail, but to fail in a big and public way, with people flying in from foreign countries to watch me fail! Whaaaa...
I ran all the way to the magic tree without stopping, which sustained my achievement from Wednesday, but did not extend it. I hadn't planned to extend it, but I've been thinking about what my next appropriate challenge should be and I really don't know. But I do know that I'd better make some major advancement in the distance I run because last night, I did something very stupid...
For about two weeks, my neighbor Brian at work has been talking about the "Turkey Trot" he is going to be running this year in his home town on Thanksgiving. His dad's an organizer and Brian's looking forward to the race. I've listened with curiosity, wondering what it would have been like to have grown up in a household where parents and kids went off exercising together.
We did do lots of things together in my household growing up and it was supremely fun. Actually, we did almost everything together – we were the three musketeers. We went to temple every Friday night, took shopping trips to Waldbaum’s and Caldor, lunched at Burger King (for the toy in the Happy Meal of course, I wouldn’t eat the food!), visited old cousin Rose at the Manor Inn on Sundays, ordered roast beef on rye with Russian dressing and coleslaw at Cook’s, subscribed to an “all Broadway all the time” lifestyle, painted together, organized radio nights where my mother would play a radio announcer, my dad would record the session, and I would be interviewed as some assigned character; there were 3 week car drives to Canada, endless Mad Libs marathons, Scrabble, charades, and when we were desperate for something to do, we’d play my mother’s favorite game - “coffee pot.” But running? Not so much!
I hadn't considered finding a Turkey Trot of my own to run, though many have suggested it. My feeling is, it's too early for me to take on anything organized, especially a race! But last night I was talking to a friend who has been particularly insistent about my trying a Turkey Trot. Usually his ideas seem a bit far fetched – what part of “bad runner” and “not ready” is he missing? But he’d made it too easy for me to reject this time, identifying a precise Trot about 3 miles from where I’ll be for Thanksgiving, and I was tired, and frankly probably feeling a bit bullish after finishing a really productive day at work. The trifecta: clear instructions, low emotional barrier to entry, and an efficient mind-set. All horses fire at once to get me through the gate. Does me in every time.
So I am now signed up for the first race of my life. It’s a 5K Turkey Trot in Bedford a week from Saturday. As I dragged myself around the Loop this morning I thought about how I’d soon have to run more than double my current course – and would have to finish it in under an hour, a requirement of the race. I have no idea how I’m going to train up to that by next Saturday. I’m off to tennis camp this weekend. Not sure if I’ll have the strength to go running in addition to the 8 hours of tennis a day this will involve. Usually I come home from tennis camp unable to walk. At this moment, I never want to step on the Lower Loop again but I know I’m going to need to change my tune by Monday morning!
Quote of the day: "They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. You can't get cherry soda 'cause they've got to fill that quota. And the way things are I'll bet they never will."
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