On Pins and Needles

“Food glorious food! Hot pretzels* with mustard!” Oliver
(*Sad but true. In these politically correct times, even Dickens isn’t safe. )

The other day, as I was lounging around with 12 needles stuck in various meridians along my back, listening to a tepid Pat Metheny tune that was discretely drowning out the sounds of chiropractic torture from the next room over, I started thinking about all the things that I do to bring this somewhat bizarre fund raising effort of mine to fruition each year.

Wait, can you hold on a sec while I finish off this bagel?

OK back. Anyway, I’m not talking about the running and the training and all that relatively normal stuff. There’s more. Much more. Try this little trick at home with the help of a friend and/or your local physical therapist: twist yourself into a pretzel position with your right knee up somewhere past your shoulders and your left leg straight underneath you. Now ask your friend to put you in a headlock and twist you in the direction opposite your knee while manipulating your back to stretch the cartilaginous joints between the vertebrae. OK, now breathe in as deeply as you can while your friend really cranks down on your back until you hear a click, sometimes two. Relax. Repeat.

Speaking of pretzels, let me just finish this bag I started a few minutes ago.

OK back. Where was I? Right, torture. Here’s another favorite of mine: the electrodes attached to the lower back so that an electrical current travels through the muscles of the sacrum area. “OK, let me know when you feel that TINgle!” Never really saw myself as the murderous type before that little episode. Then again, never saw myself as being competitive until the clown passed me last year.

Not sure if I have ever mentioned the excruciating pain that comes when a cortisone laden needle is plunged into a joint? (Before you EVEN bring it up, I do see the irony of snubbing of all forms of plastic surgery that involve needles and knives while subjecting myself to all of this.)

Hold on a sec while I put some “sour cream” on these three baked potatoes. Yum!

Anyhoo, it has been a fun two weeks here in Southeastern Connecticut, but I do believe that this team of professionals has managed to whip me back into shape, or at least have prescribed enough pain medications to make me believe that I have been whipped back into shape, which is really the same thing. A marathon is 90% mental is it not? So, I’m goin’ in people. I’m goin’ in.

Here is the plan:

o For the next three days, eat any carbohydrate that has the misfortune of not being nailed down.

o Do nothing else (except check the weather every 5 minutes and compulsively count my gels hourly to make sure that I have enough).

o On Sunday, join the crowd of Nike clad folks who have taken over the Back Bay to pick up my number (which is…

drum roll please………………………………………………………………
trumpet blast…………………………………………………………………..
22260!))

o On Monday, wake up early, get my compression-tighted self to the start line, and wait for the starting gun to go off. (Um – actually – from where I am in the lineup, I don’t really hear the starting gun, per se. Back in the corrals with the 20-something bib numbers, it is a bit like those general admission concerts back before they banned such things. There is a general wave of movement towards the starting line at some point, which is our only indication that the race has begun.)

o Keep my head in the game. Yes, I feel undertrained and underprepared and under the bus, BUT so does everyone else this side of Kenya. I probably won’t hit a qualifying time this year, but I will beat last year’s time or go out trying.

o I’m running this year in 5 mile increments. That’s one 5 mile race after another, with a 1.2 mile victory lap at the end.

o In the last two miles of the race, I WILL pass an entire page of the Boston Marathon Results Book (AKA “The Tome of Shame”) or approximately 160 people.

o Barring all that, I am not too ashamed to pull a Tonya Harding on the clown. I know people, OK?

Time to see if that weather model has been updated yet.

3 days…

………….Um – hey – are you going to finish that spaghetti?

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