It’s been a month without running.
So I decided today I should try and do a jog around my neighborhood. An easy 1.6 mile loop. That’s kinda okay’d by the treatment plan. But if I experienced pain I’d have to reset, do not pass GO, do not collect $200 and go back to Phase I.
I can’t tell — is that pain? Is it just stiffness and aches and pains from not having run in a month? I’m definitely wheezing and huffing and puffing. What a calamitous fall from the highs of a marathon a week. I struggle even breaking a ten minute mile pace as I suck wind. And there is something there in the tibia, some tweak or hitch in the stride. Or is that my imagination? Is that fear talking? Dread at having to go back to Phase I and not run again? Is that pain a Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow? Am I in for six more weeks of a winter of discontent, a lack of distance running?
I finish the loop in 16 minutes or so. A mind-whirl of disappointment at the rapid descent into diminished capabilities. And I feel… something in that leg. It’s not just in my head. It’s there.
So much for getting back out there.
I am in a dark place.