Breaking Point

Searching for my outlawed shaker of salt.
(Jimmy Buffet)

There you have it. Quicker than you can say “Open Sesamoid,” my dreams of winning the Portland Marathon on October 4th have been shattered. Smashed. Splintered. Busted. If running barefoot on broken glass appealed to me, I might actually consider taking a stab at it. Instead, I am yielding to someone else’s superior knowledge of foot mechanics and sitting this one out. Stressed out sesamoids. That’s the diagnosis.

 As I sat in a weirdly well decorated podiatrist office last week, absorbing this diagnosis while staring at the x-ray of my biomechanically unsound left foot, a series of realizations coursed through my brain:

 An entire summer spent in ugly shoes…Oh wait, I would have done that anyway…I’ll have to revert to harassing my youngest bro via old fashioned obnoxious texting (”where IS Portland anyway?”, ‘is it raining?” and “dude, get a job yet?”)…I am getting old…I am going to go insane… How, exactly, am I going to reduce my daily caloric consumption by 1000 calories?… Poor Sean…and finally – Hurraaah!!! <<insert clip of angels singing here>> It is NOT arthritis, it will heal, and I will be back at it by the fall, my favorite time to run anyway.

I briefly entertained the idea of coming out of my healing period strong and heading straight into training for the late November Philly marathon, mostly because I was intrigued by the potentially awesome Rocky themed playlist. I also considered easing into a half marathon training program and shooting for a good time in the late October Boston Half. Then my hairdresser, as usual, came through with a bit of sage advice. At the time she gave me this advice she was talking around a mouthful of hair clips, so I couldn’t make out every word, but I think it went something like this:  “freaking-chill-for-god’s-sake.” After removing the clips from her mouth she very clearly said:  “Go get a book. A novel. Read it.” I have to say, Trish has rarely steered me wrong before. Other than the famed Fashion Red Debacle of 2007 or the lesser known Posh Spice Incident of 2009, it’s all been good. 

Clearly, this concept of allowing an injury to heal is a radical departure from my standard Marathons for the Mediocre Training Plan (patent pending). If you are suffering from early onset dementia (and who amongst us is not?) allow me to refresh your memory with the Cliff Note version of that plan:

Day 1:  Decide to run marathon.  Call everyone you know and tell them you are running said marathon.

Day 2:  Invest several hundred dollars at Amazon.com (not including overnight shipping costs) on new training books by authors that all look vaguely alike.

 Day 3:  Invest several hundred dollars on new running gear, including size small compression tights.

 Day 4:  Choose new training program by drawing it from a hat.

 Day 5:  Develop multi-dimensional, day to day workout schedule in excel for entire 18 week training period.  Incorporate your work schedule, your husband’s work schedule, school schedules, parent teacher conferences, doctor visits, anticipated illnesses for all family members, spin schedules for 3 separate gym facilities, your running partners’ schedules (including their work schedules, husband’s work schedules, kids’ schedules, etc), holidays, family visits, phases of the moon, and any long term weather predictions you can glean from the Farmer’s Almanac.  Link workout schedule to equally comprehensive nutrition plan worksheet for same time period.

Day 6:  (AM) Go for a run.  (PM) Order second pair of compression tights in size large.  (Hang on to size small tights because they will no doubt fit in several weeks). Rewrite workout schedule to incorporate your pathetic inability to run faster than 10 minutes a mile.  Drink bottle of wine.

 Day 7:  Rest day!

 Week 4:  Unable to run because one of the children got sick (off schedule) and husband is traveling and you can’t leave sick child at home by themselves again or the neighbors will call DCF.  Husband returns!  Blizzard outside, gym closed.  Drink bottle of wine.

Week 5:  Rewrite training plan to incorporate the fact that you are already 10 days behind in training schedule. 

Week 7:  You failed to incorporate CGA/BOT meeting into plan.  Husband working 18 hour days.  All runs are cut in half due to time constraints. 

Week 8:  Husband returns!  But now you are sick.  No runs for 5 days.

Week 9:  Use training plan to start fire in wood burning stove.  It’s too %^&*ing cold out to run anyway.  Drink bottle of wine.  Cut size small compression tights into loops for daughter’s weaving toy. 

Week 10:  Go back to original schedule without adequate lead-up.  Obtain connective tissue injury. 

Weeks 11-13:  Pretend injury is minor and can be cured via consumption of liver pickling quantities of NSAIDs and ice. 

Week 14:  Acknowledge severity of injury only after cementing it in place for all of eternity by running 18 miles on it. 

Weeks 15-17:  Spend every moment of free time working out on low-impact machines in fluorescent lit soul sucking fitness center. 

Week 18:  Tank marathon. 

Weeks 19-34:  Complain bitterly, recover, spend every moment of free time with physical therapist.

 Repeat.

 This training program has served me well, no doubt about it. But lets face it – after four marathons it has become a bit stale. Time for something new. Time to chill, at least a little bit, at least for a while.

 Anyone know of a good training program for that?

 264 days.

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