Let's Be Honest

"I once heard the worse thing a man can do is draw a hungry crowd,

tell everyone his name with pride and confidence but leaving out his doubts. I'm not sure I bought those words, when I was young I knew most everything. These words have never meant as much to anyone as they now mean to me." -Those Avett boys

I went for my first post Grindstone run last night. Well, the first run out of doors. I attempted to run on Monday in the basement on the treadmill that came last week to replace the old and broken one. Two minutes in and I was no longer sure of anything, twenty minutes later, after alternating between walking and running breaks, I called it a day.

So I went for that first official run, with peers and some pressure, high on Aleve and sunshine. Mentally it was all I had hoped for and more, I was just so damn happy to be running again after an eleven day interruption (what some may call rest or recovery) following the situation (what some may call a 100 miler). Physically however, it was a bone crushing disappointment. The first half of the run I kept up with the group, but it was flat to downhill. However, as the distance wore on my knee wore out until I had to back way off. I ended up walking it in at the end. I don't regret going, it was a much needed run even if it was painful at the end.

Let's be honest. I know what I signed up for, I signed up for something they call The Beast. I didn't expect it to be easy. I just didn't expect it to be so damn depressing. I didn't expect to feel so unbeast like, so frail, so weak. I accepted the little bit of depression, I even allowed it a few days to run it's course, then I asked it to leave. We had a good day or two.

Afternoons are the worst actually, generally about the time I would be lacing up my shoes for the afternoon run, eating a slice of toast for a snack. Now I am barefoot, hungry. I can recognize what's going on but it's getting rather hard to shake off the doom and gloom. I just want to go for a run. Is it so much to ask for it to be relatively pain-free? Maybe so. I don't know.

Today the knee pain is back to where it was a week ago, but being obsessive as well as impolite I keep finding myself wanting to test it, a squat here, a quick jaunt up the stairs. It's nagging me and so I almost feel compelled to nag it back.

Sad truth is the self and I had even done a little pep talk before Grindstone, that there may not be any running between now and Masochist. I don't know who we had fooled. Turns out, it wasn't either of us.

I am trying really hard to be happy, to see the good. I know it could be worse. I know there are still a few weeks still to heal. That there is more than running, so much more. I know all of these things but sometimes, they only stand to make the darkness that more painful, that I know I should be less crazy and yet sometimes just can't help it.

Truth is I like Masochist. It's one of if not my favorite races we do. It suits me, lots of service road, lots of climbing. The realization that I am not going to have a good day is eating away at me more than it should. I really want to shake the dark cloud, go in with an open mind and a heart to finish but the back of my mind there is this screaming about my knees.

Why can't they just get with the program?

-alexis