The Winter of my Discontent

The Winter of my Discontent

I ran ten road miles today, ten miles with a good friend as surrounding snow began to yield to warming temperatures. Per S.O.P. when not huffing or puffing we talk, as we have for hundreds of hours on the trails. Investments, family, friends and situations, typically the focus of conversations.

Today was not much different except …..  I confessed that I have been treading dangerous waters …. I have been feeling sorry for myself.

In my mind I try to feel justified, cold and snow have denied the pleasure of trail runs. Marathon snow shoveling has rewarded me with sore hands and road run roads which have produced painful feet. “Forced” to cut firewood an old injury under my rib cage has reappeared making it   hard to sleep and sometimes breath. Poor, Poor, me …. So tragic.

Each morning as I awake, still in that world of half awareness, I wiggle my feet. Sometimes I feel all of my toes and sometimes not. There may be small jabs of pin pricks or nothing at all, sometimes they will feel like ice while actually they are warm, or, hot even when they are actually cool. It’s all F-d up.

Hands prickle, guts spin, and I never know if I’m headed to the “Can” once, twice or twelve times in the next fourteen hours. To paraphrase the song ……  “Poor, Poor, Pitiful me”, all these things are working on me ….. Lord have Mercy on me, wo is me.

 And yet, I ran ten miles today, with a good friend in warming weather and ……… I am ashamed, because I realize that so many woke up this morning suffering physical and mental strain far beyond anything I’m dealing with now or in the past. How many would love to wake up with even the possibility to wiggle their feet?

Yet, I’ll give myself a “Pass”, I won’t beat myself up because I know that this is a natural thing we all do…..  The key ………… I believe is not to stay in this state too damn long. It will yield nothing but temporary physiological relief. I need more than that….

It is about a month before my first race of 2014, Terrapin Mountain. I guess I am either ignorant or blessed. I believe I MIGHT improve on my inspired performance of last year. I have obstacles in my path, lack of training, injury, feeling damn sorry for myself and lack of drive ….. But what the hell I have another month ….. A month to get back on the trails ………. A month to realize this gift I have been given ………. A month to create a plan to crush the sixty year old division, some of the fifty, most of the forty, a majority of the thirty and perhaps concede to the twenties (most of which I should leave in the dust).

Oh my God, to be Sixty and still be a dreamer!

I should not feel sorry for myself ………