Pre-Training: Day Two
That’s right: pre, by which I don’t mean sprinting in the steps of the champion runner. I’m training to train right now, according to the book that shall become my Bible for the next 22 weeks.
Monday, zero hour in the PT process, I decided to run along the East River and discovered a track a straight three avenues away from my apartment on the water. After running to and from the wind and around fishing poles and bikes up and down the east coast of Manhattan, I finished my 40 minute run with a couple of laps around the field.
Today, rushing out to beat the scheduled late afternoon rain, I stuck strictly to the damp rubber synthetic. And I discovered the calm to be achieved in steady circuitousness. My mental game was more directed. I focused on Philadelphia. What I would wear. The finish line. Granted, this banner and clock is a good five months away and a wee bit of a ramp up from this 40 min 4 x a week schedule, but as my good book says, positive thinking is key. I think you’re allowed to verge on delusional.
Which is what I felt clicking that registration page yesterday, paying that 90 bucks and checking a few No boxes for questions I didn’t even fully understand. No, I don’t own a whositwhatsit. No, I will not partake in a $30 dollar night-before-the-race buffet. Maybe I’ll splurge for it when I have a job, but for now I’m picturing a great smuggling of dinner rolls to my Philadelphia hotel room. Salted with my trembling, fearful tears.
Considering the resemblance my face has had to a giant, pink, irritated pimple ballooning from my neck immediately following the first two days’ runs, I’m worried about all of my body parts remaining hinged and naturally colored as I escalate training to 10, 12, 16 mile days. As I bow my head down to my post-run meal of salmon, I feel slightly like some Looney Tunes character in absurd camouflage. From the neck up.
Enough with the neck. The legs are feeling neglected, but only in description. They feel alternately stretched out and crammed deep into their own joints; exhausted.
And I…. I feel really, really wonderful. So far.
