So Fast in My Brain

The only thing keeping my going with this whole marathon training game right now is the spirit of others. In the last two weeks, my friend Matt completed the Leadville 100 miler, in the coldest, dankest conditions of its history (I will have to devote a blog post all its own to that epic experience of crewing for Matt), and my brother Danny finished the Green Lakes Endurance 100k near Syracuse New York, taking third place male overall – I have to throw the caveat “male” in there, since happily a female finished in the top three.

So my measly 50-something miles per week (per week!) don’t seem like they should be really that much of a stretch.

Last Saturday was a 2:40 run on the Appalachian trail in West Virginia, another reminder of the softness that comes with road training. On Sunday, I started out the run feeling glorious. The weather was beautiful and I was listening to my mp3 player for the first time in a long while. I headed out to the C&O Canal Trail, which is a flat dirt track that winds between the scummy canal on one side and the Shenandoah River on the other. I felt like I was booking it – I watched the Olympic marathon the night before, and in my mind I was Samuel Wanjiru-fast, pounding the ground and moving so fast it was maybe even hard to see me. At the second mile, I looked at my watch: 8 minutes, 50 seconds. (Wanjiru was running 4:50s.)

Um.

I am so fast in my brain. Perhaps my body will catch up eventually.