Life is a Beach ( written August 14th)

As I lay here on the beach listening to bits of 90s brit pop (in the form of Supergrass) I ponder on my various new found running injuries. These injuries seem to like me. They linger and sort of go away but they return like an old friend when you least expect them.

Just who and what are these injuries ad why do they like me so much?

Injury #1: Left leg.

Yes this one really seems to be making up for lost time, over a dozen marathons and ultra marathons and not one single boo boo, in fact not even a break between running or speed work or anything. But that all ended when I overloaded my training schedule with too many projects and replaced yoga with biking. Which turned into a terrible mistake, but hey I was training for a triathlon. This led to last November me walking the last ten miles of the NYC marathon.

I never did recover from that even though I ran an ultra 3 weeks after, plus a spring marathon and a hand full of half marathons.

Injury #2:Neroma.

This one stopped me from running for a month and I blame switching to light weight trainers. They felt great just over time my weak imbalanced right foot and over pronating gave way to a pain that had me limping while walking . Of course being the trooper I am one month later I returned to running and my 2nd run after a tough 3 miles? a half marathon in mid 90s temperature (hurray for summer) Of course this led me to my worst half ever ( 2:16 ) and a visit to the med tent for ice (which worked miracles)

So what have I done aside of rest? Acupuncture! I started treating my right foot with great results the swelling went down and I was able to run a good 7 miles of that half before I began to really fade (due to the heat) being on my feat that long only aggrivated my foot and brought the pain back but it was still manageable compared to how I felt pre acupuncture.

I write all this knowing I'm not in the greatest shape to run yet another half marathon tomorrow in the Bronx, but you know I signed up for it and thats enough to make a runner risk it all. At least its a healthy addiction.

Anyway I have realized during my time off that being a fast runner doesn't really matter all that much to me, yeah I know there's Boston and all but I already ran it and yes it was fun but mostly because I ran it as a bandit and there was no pressure to 'PR'.

No what really matters is that we are able to enjoy the process of training and running the marathon rather than worrying about satisfying our egos.

I also learned that being injured has made me a better swimmer, from a lap and being out of breath to nearly a mile.

Next year I'll do another sprint triathlon or a few for fun. I've had ambitions for an Ironman but I'll let that happen on its own, why kill myself? Besides I'm never putting yoga on the back burner again it's always going to be an important part of my training. It kept me injury free for nearly 10 years and the moment I stopped taking care of myself I got injured.

Besides, don't we just do this for fun anyway? Speaking of which I'm going to return to the beach and my lovely lady. Adios'

"I don't think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it"