[Ed. note: It was not blue today, despite this post's title...and not sunny like the 2009 photo above. In fact, it was overcast, with socked-in mountains disappearing and increasing clouds blanketing the Front Range...making it freakin' cold. Try to remember that the next time you say one afternoon, "Hey it sure it is gorgeous out -- surely tomorrow will be the same, right?"]
I ran my ass off today. Actually, I ran my right leg, right hip and left foot off, apparently...I don't know when any of those body parts will be in working order again. But I did it in the interest of running 13.1 miles in a good time, a privilege for which I paid $75. Yesterday. I signed up for the race yesterday, with (as I duly noted on Facebook...how else to better revel in self-pity?) no training, and no running to speak of in my recent history. There has been the very rare 3- or 4-miler, maybe one every month or so, dating back to...I honestly have no idea. I haven't been a regular runner in a long, very long (think multiple years) time.
(I'm going to engage now in a tactic that annoys the utter hell out of me when used in conversation...that of asking a question in order to provide the answer. Seriously, if you do it to me, or in front of me, or you are a paid or even highly respected speaker, and you start to do this -- I will walk far, far away immediately.)
Why did I do it? I still don't know the answer. My girlfriend was signed up since before I even met her a couple of months back, and she was preparing to run -- though her training has suffered and fallen off completely due to the incredible amount of attention I demand and general wackiness in which I engage. So there we were (again: yesterday), picking up her packet and race bib and whatnot, when I decided, "What the hell...I could use some competitive running. Maybe I'll do the 10K. Wait, that's pretty weak when others are running twice that, right? There's a 10-miler...but seriously, if I can run 6.2, I can run 10, ergo, I can run 13+. Sign me up, bitches!" I didn't really use that term, but I did say it with the sort of confident swagger that only a complete moron can display.
As we drove around the local roads just after the now-infamous spontaneous sign-up, it began to sink in for me just how long 3 miles, and 6, and 10, and -- dear God, 13?? -- really are. It's not that I haven't run a half-marathon before, or even a marathon...I've run exactly one of each, six and four years ago respectively. As I watched the odometer ever-so-slowly tick off distances that looked brutally painful over rutted dirt roads, it occurred to me why it had been so damn long since I'd run such a distance. And those were run in New York City, with its constantly distracting twists, turns and neighborhoods. Now I was on the back roads east and north of Boulder Reservoir, facing impossibly long straightaways, huge prairie vistas that don't seem to move any closer, and only the occasional cow to count as a spectator.
The agonizing nature of willing one's legs forward when they have no intention of doing so after a few miles, the slew of injuries that appeared or reappeared or experienced sudden & profound aggravation, the mental exercises in which one must engage in order to strive for a particular time or just to avoid walking...all of that seems so far away and long ago now, only hours later. But the exhilaration of finishing well, the satisfaction of giving it all you possibly had to give, and even the thrill of hearing your name called out (with "Boulder, Colorado" as your hometown for the very first time, no less)...they stick around longer, thank God.
Which brings me to now: Sunday afternoon in one of Boulder's ubiquitous cafes, anxious to resume the drinking I began when I downed a few delicious microbrews with my lunch just a bit ago. I survived, and you could even make the case that I thrived, if you score my run relative to the various factors of no training, multiple lingering injuries, brand-new running shoes and an altitude over a mile high that my cardiovascular capability has not fully embraced. My leg may be dead, my foot may bear blisters literally on top of other blisters, and who knows -- my walk may never be the same again. But if it's this type of jackassery that I need to prove to myself that I can step in completely cold and still pull off a respectable result in a grueling competition, than so be it. I'll be that jackass.
(See link below for more on the inaugural Boulder Spring Half...)
Boulder Marathon history & description of 1st Spring Half
