Some things I’m just not very good at keeping - one would be a journal. I’m always kicking myself, the supposed writer, for not chronicling and archiving the moments that present in a more concrete manner. It makes me sad to think of all those memories lost to the unreliable narrator of my mind. (I fully recognize the irony of that statement.) I have tried over the years, many times, to start some sort of narrative - any sort of reference to this life. There are dozens of bound journals with fits and starts but no real essence. The closest you would get to finding the moments would be in my boxed up yearly dayrunners, even those are dusty with neglect in these electronic dating days. So, last week when I was cleaning out my desk, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a running journal that I actually kept for my 3 months of Boston Marathon training. It was nostalgic and strangely intense to read the tiny snippets - and they truly are tiny, just a roll call of miles run, temperature, calories consumed, miles on the shoes, pace and how I felt - nothing spectacular, nothing special. But just peeking into that book took me instantly back there, to that 12 mile run a week before the big race supposed to be slow but burned up @ sub 7 pace. I can remember the way the air felt, the unusual smell at mile 9 that nearly made me sick and turning onto our street smiling ear to ear, recognizing how ready I was for the big day. And that’s just one run. I could do that for almost every run recorded in the journal. It made me pause and realize one fundamental reason why I love running so much. It’s something I DO. It’s not something I start and stop. It doesn’t nag at the base of my mind as a should be or could be; it simply is. Yes the training plans, the goals, the triumphs are all part of the package, but running is running without the medals and the circled date at the end of a calendar. I lace up my shoes, walk out the door, head to the park and traipse back home. Once home I am finished with my task - beginning, middle and a neat,tidy denoument - every single day. And if I’m up for it I can pile on the goals, push myself to go faster, longer, harder, more; layer the experience, but I know regardless that I will most certainly open the door and run. It’s as essential as sleeping, eating or loving.
And with that newly formed understanding my first building week went quite well. I had to cut out my Wednesday run entirely due to freakishly strange weather: hail storms, 50 mph winds, and loud, loud thunderclaps that shook the house. So I padded the rest of my runs with a few extra miles to try and meet my weekly mileage goal, coming close. Next week I plan on adding an additional 2 hours of XT via road bike; we’ll see how well my energy holds all of these different exercise balls in the air - and if it does - then I might just do the Ironman Tri in September with Eric…..
Miles run 46 +1.5 hour swimming +1.5 hour resistance & yoga
I get a great sense of joy looking at my old training diaries. I think I don't keep a chronicle of my running any more because I am not satisfied with my performance. Still, looking at an entry from 1984 still brings back the smell of "Le Bois" in Belgium. I struggle mightily with what to write, when to write , where to write and how. Im my head a run can be something very different from reality, and it is much harder to lie in writing to yourself.
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