Les Running Misérables

Following a 16 mile run on June 10, I start having some pain on the bottom of my right foot.  A few days later it has not gone away and I end up at the doctor (I choose a Filipino woman who is specialized in sports medicine and is herself a marathon runner).  A few tests later I am diagnosed with a pre-stress fracture.  That is not quite a stress fracture, but if I keep running it will likely become one.  The treatment is basically the same as a fracture.  4 weeks down :-(

Every time I am off my feet I am miserable.  I feel I will get lazy and never go back to running.  I feel like a sloth, dragging my body through the day.  After four weeks, my doctor allows me to go back to light-duty running.  For the next 14 days I can run for 20 minutes three times per week.

You'd think I'd be static to go back to running, but somehow it is not quite happening.  For sure I do lace up and the first week squeeze every minute out of my 20 prescribed, but I don't seem to get the pleasure I used to.  The second week I do just two our of my three possible runs.  What's happening?  Did I loose my appetite for running?

After two weeks I am supposed to see my doctor again to learn how far I can run, but I've had no pain for over four weeks. I opt to skip the consultation and self prescribe a long run.  This morning I run 11.88 miles in 1:50:32 and just a few miles into my run I feel the love back (the love for the run, that is. It is a tad late for my usual Sunday run (7:00AM) and very hot and humid (80 and 70%) and should be a miserable run.  I think precisely because it is, I love it.

As I do my last few miles I realize I am not a runner as I used to think, I am a long-distance-runner.   Everything starts making sense.  When not injures, I run 5 days a week, but four out of those runs are under 6 miles, often even under 5.  I could not care less about those.  I simply run those in preparation for my long Sunday run.  That is the one that's worth my time.  It is not the endorphins or the running high I seek.  It s the misery of the long run.  The numbness of the mind that only a long, monotonous run can produce.  I realize I have joined the ranks of Les Running Misérables.

Paradoxically, I am miserable in my short runs because they don't do much for me, but it is the long miserable run on Sunday that gives me pleasure.  It is that realization that also give me pleasure.  We live and we learn.  We age and get more complex.  We add layers.  And the process of peeling those layers and discovering who we are makes us more human.  I am eager to keep exploring.  Bring it on!