Sic Semper Tyrannis

Two Things

Wow. Long time no type.
If you’re still with me, I’ve got two things to tell you about.

1) The training for this year’s Memorial Marathon has taken up the bulk of my energy, both mental and physical.

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes on how you train your body and mind for one of these things. There is one day of every week where you run a “long” distance. The first long run of the 17-week schedule was 8 miles, I think, and it generally builds up from there to, usually 20 miles. Then there are shorter runs during the week to keep you strong and build your endurance and speed, etc.

My training suffered a setback right after I did my 19 mile week. After that run I developed tendonitis in my Achilles tendon. This is a pretty common injury for runners and for me, has proven to be more of a lingering nuisance rather than unbearable pain.

While developing this condition so late in the game sucks, it’s also not a dealbreaker for me. I’ve put way too much work in to call it off. It’s an injury I CAN run on—YES I HAVE gotten clearance from my doctor, (who is also a runner), and two days ago I finished the hardest run of the whole program, the 20 miler. It wasn’t pretty the last 4 miles or so, but I got it done on a windy, warm day.

Now, to set myself up for a marathon that is enjoyable, not just something I can suffer through, I have begun physical therapy, (which is wonderful) and am being very careful and intentional the next couple of weeks.

Sidenote: It becomes increasingly apparent to me that, through this whole process of losing weight, keeping it off, and adopting healthy behaviors to grab life by the throat, I have somehow become something of an athlete. It’s funny how life works out.

But I am starting to reevaluate some of my goals and assumptions as a runner. There will be more time to stew on and pontificate about that after this goal is completed, however.

Stay tuned over the next few days for more on how YOU can help me out with this next long run and a potential special guest post.

2) I just finished reading Dave Eggers’ book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for the second time. Can I iterate to you how much I love this book? Probably not, but I will try.

This is a mostly true (?) memoir written in a sophisticated, sometimes funny, sometimes inspiring, sometimes “make-you-want-to-cry”-sad, always interesting style. It reads like an EEG, a direct feed of the thoughts of a neo-Romantic poet; a manic-depressive twenty-something guy forced by circumstances to become the guardian of his younger brother.

I have never read a book that makes me want to be a writer more, and I would like to recommend it right now to anyone interested in the art of stringing words and sentences together. So I will.

“I recommend this book to anyone interested in the art of stringing words and sentences together.”

posted by Mike @ 10:42 AM