{"id":38546,"date":"2021-08-27T16:41:22","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T20:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=38546"},"modified":"2021-08-27T16:41:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T20:41:22","slug":"wouldnt-it-be-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=38546","title":{"rendered":"Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice\u2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if doing the smart thing, or the right thing, or the adult thing was also just sometimes the fun thing, the happy thing, the easy thing to do?

For the second time in as many weeks, I\u2019ve had to cancel my race weekend plans. I was supposed to drive up to Santa Rosa wine country to run their marathon, complete with a complimentary \u201cRunner\u2019s Red\u201d bottle of wine. But my toe just won\u2019t go.

I broke down today and tried running to see where I was in the recovery\/recuperation cycle. This morning I was 70% in a \u201cthis is do-able\u201d flow, but there were plenty of percentages in the \u201cwell, this isn\u2019t such a great idea\u201d and sadly double digits in the category \u201coh, hell-no, this is a terrible idea!\u201d But to be honest, those aren\u2019t that far off of the percentages of my puttering round my kitchen.

Without a clear cut \u201cthis is good\u201d or \u201cthis is bad\u201d result, I was left with the unenviable \u201cit is neither better nor worse for wear.\u201d I was leaning towards going then\u2026 but what if I made it worse? I\u2019m not a young man anymore. I don\u2019t heal the way I used to, I don\u2019t bounce back the way I used to. At the same time, maybe this is as good as I would get \u2013 there have been nagging, lingering, niggling pains and aches and tweaks that just don\u2019t ever go away anymore. I learned to live with them. Maybe this is the latest or even the final one. Maybe this is the end.

I had ordered a toe splint thing from Amazon (because despite their awfulness, they were significantly cheaper than Target or any local convenience store). They arrived this afternoon and I decided before making the final call to cancel my hotel room and notify the race director I wasn\u2019t coming that I should run one more test. I velcro\u2019d the splint and went for a run.

The percentages were way better \u2013 it felt like a band aid on a broken blister which I know from experience is no fun but doable for a marathon. I was at maybe 90% doable vibes, with only some \u201chmmmm\u201d and maybe 1% of the \u201chell-no, we shouldn\u2019t go\u201d curses. But one percent is STILL one percent.

I dropped a line to my Mom and brother laying out the rationalization \u2013 the brain says no, the head and heart say yes. But while the endorphins and the psychological components make a VERY persuasive argument, the physical worries of doing more damage over the repetitive motion of 26.2 miles couldn\u2019t be ignored. I know mentally I really needed to run\u2026 but I also need to be able to run again. Fuck this up and I could be done with running forever. As stupid as it was to clock my toe on my dresser or the ottoman or whatever it was that may or may not have broken the pinky toe and made it go \u201cwhee, whee, whee\u201d all the way home, it was, and still is, an injury. Was I pushing too quickly to get back to the race? Was I not doing what we all are doing in this pandemic, wishing it were over rather than actually waiting for it to be over?

We are all impatient and frustrated and angry. A lot of us (but sadly not enough of us) have done and continue to do what we need to do \u2013 mask up, vaccinate, avoid crowds, wash our hands, be respectful and mindful of personal spaces and personal needs and putting the well being of others who CANNOT do some of these things not because of \u201cchoice\u201d but because of legitimate allergies\/conditions\/science. And it\u2019s annoying that we have to keep doing this when so many have declared they don\u2019t have to \u2013 so many have declared it viciously, carelessly, selfishly, and mortifyingly (literally MORTI-fying as in \u201ckillingly\u201d). We keep doing the right thing and yet our sacrifices seem in vain. It\u2019s the temptation to chuck it all and damn the consequences and just go do what we want.

But there are always consequences. It may not always be apparent or immediate. But there are ALWAYS consequences.

Even something as stupid and silly as my marathon weekend has consequences. Will my not going prove to be the wrong decision? I\u2019m depressed as it is\u2026 will skipping this race sned me ever deeper into an abyss? Am I letting fear dictate my decisions, a fear of \u201cwhat if\u2026?\u201d instead of \u201cwhat is?\u201d

Perhaps the biggest frustration in trying to make the smart, right, adult decision is that I could just as easily be talking myself into thinking it\u2019s the smart, right, and adult decision all while making the wrong choice.

The only truth I know right now is that I\u2019m not going to Santa Rosa, CA. And that makes me sad.

I can only hope that it is the right decision in the long run.<\/p>\r\n

***<\/p>\r\n

The map of where I might have been:<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if doing the smart thing, or the right thing, or the adult thing was also just sometimes the fun thing, the happy thing, the easy thing to do? For the second time in as many weeks, I\u2019ve had to cancel my race weekend plans. I was supposed to drive up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38546"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38551,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38546\/revisions\/38551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}