The Week I Ran A lot

Originally I wrote this post a week ago. It was a long detailed description of my week that I ran 7 marathons in 7 days. I talked about what I ate, what time I got up, shoes I wore, the little injuries I had, and a bunch of other crap that probably no one gives a shit about. I looked at what I wrote and honestly I hate race recaps and found what I wrote boring as hell. And probably what I'm writing now is stupid, but at least what I'm jotting down now is what I want to say.

It's a weird time. We are all on lockdown. Everything is closed. No where to go. Nothing to do. All my races are cancelled. And honestly no one knows what the fuck is going on. Some people say everything is fine and some people say we are basically all going to die. At this point it's just a waiting game. We only have this very moment.

Usually with all the dumb stuff I do, I do actually learn some things. I learned that wind really fucking sucks when you're running for a long time. It acts like a Chinese water torture session. For some reason it always seemed to be blowing in my face. Or hitting me from the side, but almost never a tailwind. I did get the tailwind a few times but I never felt it until I turned around to run back towards the house and now it became a headwind and I proceeded to yell obscenities at the sky. It started to feel like a Coen Brothers movie where everything goes kinda wrong for the lead character and the good things happen by mistake only to be followed by more slightly bad shit.

When things are going wrong and you really feel like shit that doesn't mean they will stay that way. It's easy to give up and totally understandable when shit sucks, it's almost natural and what our bodies are supposed to do. It keeps us safe and out of danger. But there are moments when you break though that barrier of shit, when you tell your mind "no thank you" I'll keep going to see where this leads. This is when that cool shit happens. Your mind separates from your body. Your feet just move. They glide along the concrete and nothing can stop them. You sort of gaze down and just watch your shoes shuffle along. I had a few moments during the 5th and 6th marathon that were just ugly. I was just done running. My feet hurt and the last 4 miles of each one really sucked. But the second you finish that last .2 miles and stop your watch, and realize you are done for the day, you instantly forget those shitty moments and are already looking forward to tomorrow.

I also learned that there is one thing that people can universally come together on. And that is effort. There is something about a person giving everything they have or trying really fucking hard that is entertaining to people. Maybe its just because we are all under quarantine and we are starting to lose our minds but when I finished each marathon and I posted it on FB the response blew my mind. People started looking forward to each day around 11am if I did another one, no one was really sure what I was doing but they were tuning in. This was my own bizarre show.

I like people. We will get out of this soon enough. So breathe, move your body, and be nice. Peace.