If you haven't noticed by now, excuses rule my life. My excuse for being fat is genetic, and not, for example, the chocolate Cadbury bar that I have hidden in my freezer. My excuse for my constant exhaustion is that I simply get more tired than the average person, and it's not fair. I'm perennially broke because someone has to keep the poor souls at Starbucks in business or the entire economy will collapse (whoops!). And so on, until I've justified everything from not doing my dishes for the past three weeks, to disappointing my mother by being single to purchasing the Chris Kattan classic, Corky Romano on DVD. The one day I went to my Psychology class in college (I couldn't! I had to work at that time! And nap.), I learned that a true sociopath's ability to justify their actions and mine were eerily similar. It also explained my penchant for murdering hookers. Go figure.With my marathon training this particular side of my personality was out in full force. Anything from a dead iPod to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was cause for skipping a work out. So you could imagine my shock when an excuse I didn't make up, and thus couldn't undue, presented itself. My leg injury hasn't gotten much better and, at this point, I haven't run in over a week.
After seeking advice from a few valid sources like my cousin, Baby Dr. Michael (not because he's a pediatrician, but, because he's younger than I am and he's not a doctor - yet .) and my friend Suzanne, who is a trainer and in from Cali this week (I actually met her at her mother's house for their annual block party. We were, literally, partying like it was 1999), I took the week off to just let my body rest. For all the excuses I have been making over the past 7-plus weeks, the fact of the matter is my body was going through a lot of wear and tear, very quickly, and the simplest answer may have just been rest. I have never put much stock into the "simplest answer", mostly because I have an overactive imagination, and am not very good at math.
I quickly realized, as this week off filled me with a level of dread I usually save for looking at pictures of other people's children, that I had become obsessed with running the marathon. This is also fairly common. I am notorious for becoming quickly, unavoidably, painfully obsessed with something in a matter of moments, as evidenced by the mac power book I HAD to have, the 2 pump hazelnut iced coffee with skim that I'm drinking (the first of several) and my DVD collection that at one point had every movie I've ever seen. Most of the time the obsessions don't last and they aren't that solid - you can ask the Nintendo Wii I bought for $650 when it was out of stock and have only used twice. The same thing happened with the thought of running the marathon, only I was so busy hating the marathon, I didn't realize I really loved it. The depression then started to set in, not just because I might not be able to run the marathon and I was missing a week of training, but also because my relationship with the marathon so closely resembled a Katherine Heigl movie. I wondered if I'd be trying on several different bridesmaid dresses soon, or perhaps, going to dinner with vibrating underwear. This was going to be a disaster.
So I took the week off, started drinking again and went to CVS to buy $75 worth of running/body remedies - salt baths, ice packs, various creams and lotions. This in of itself should justify my dedication to this marathon training. It is a well-documented fact that I do not like to have substances touching me. But by mid-week, I couldn't get out of my own head and the prospect of not running firmly outweighed the misery of having to run. I called the doctor and my chiropractor and made two appointments for the end of the week. I needed someone to tell me I was gravely injured, a paranoid maniac or something in between.
Friday morning I saw my chiropractor, Steve, who is a good friend of my boss Ted. Steve is an unassuming guy, with a small, but very successful chiropractic practice out of Bayville, NY. I like him, because he's into holistic medicine without even the faintest whiff of New Age, Hippie Bullshit that so many flower children of a certain age seem to be unable to relinquish. I had be seeing Steve intermittently for about a year, ever since I injured my back at one of my Relay events.
For the amount of words I say in a single day (or write in a single blog), I can be surprisingly un-chatty when I want to be. It's mostly because I hate small talk or chit chat. I think it's a waste of oxygen, and as an asthmatic, I take that very seriously. Also, I don't generally like to be touched, so the chiropractor is not my favorite place in the world. Steve has a good understanding of that, and usually lays off the small talk and just uses his reflexology voodoo magic to make me better.
Steve's assessment of my injury was simple: I was 200 pounds trying to run a marathon. I was going to have some aches and pains. But I wanted to hear the words, so I made him say it: Just run through the pain. He also told me that I needed more salt intake and more calcium. I found both of these things shocking. I had been trying to stick to a low(er) sodium diet these past few months in an effort to lose weight. In all the years that I've struggled with my weight, I was genuinely surprised to hear that my diet was effecting my body. I know it seems silly, but I never put together the fact that I was pouring out gallons of sweat a day and my limited salt intake, and the adverse effects this could have on my muscles. The human body is much a mystery to me as the building of tunnels.
Friday afternoon, I had an appointment with my general practitioner, so my (now obviously) imaginary injury could get another thumbs up. My doctor is used to seeing me fairly often, because I can, on occasion, be "sickly". Years of asthma, allergies and general sloth like behavior have made my immune system somewhat compromised. Nothing serious, but if you have the common cold and I catch it, the chances of my body taking that cold an turning it into a pneumonia or ebola is highly likely.
I saw Dr. M. and he was pleasantly surprised that, to the naked eye, there was nothing dripping from any of my orifices. Obviously, he was confounded by what I was doing there without the need of a syringe to open up my tonsilitis infected throat, so when I told him that I was running the marathon he was positively delighted. He then went on to tell me all about his wife's triumphant marathoning days.
This is the problem when you tell someone you are running the marathon, they immediately tell you about someone they know who did the same thing. What I want to say is that your marathon running friend or family member probably was a lot more serious about this and wasn't clocking in at a whopping 13 minute mile and never went to two doctors in one day with a psychosomatic leg injury. But instead I nod and smile and agree with all the tips. People just want to help out, you know?
Dr. M., is a careful guy, who likes to run tests, so he checked my circulation, my blood, and ruled out a hernia (this was not something I was prepared for - I hope he wasn't insulted by my Man of Steel Superman undies). He started to suggest that perhaps I needed to build more muscle in my legs, and then pulled up my jeans to check out my legs. To say he was surprised would be an understatement - a lot of people are. I look like a pear running around on a pair of Q-tips.
Dr. M. came up with the same thing as Steve - I was fine, just a little worse for wear. He told me to take it easy and take the rest of the weekend off. But I was back on track. Someone other than the crazy person who lives in my heart of my mind had told me I was fine. Marathon: Here I come.
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