Races Like a Girl

Tuesday’s run sucked. Today’s was much better. Despite terrible wind for half of each lap, I did my planned 8 x 800m intervals and even — yes, this is nearly impossible to believe — enjoyed them in some odd, sick way. They were hard, and they were anywhere from 1-15 seconds slower than planned. But they were run with the full commitment of heart and mind. I left the track feeling invigorated, filled with a renewed optimism, and pleasantly tired. And very hungry.

I’m amending this post: The last two interval sessions have coincided with Jonathan’s dates with the track, so we’ve gone together. We’re doing totally different sessions and paces, of course, so we don’t run them together. But it’s been useful to have someone else there, both for support and to observe. Both of us assume we look terrible when running uncomfortably fast — I guess it’s natural to think that you look as bad as you feel. It turns out that we’re both smooth runners at high speeds (unless one of us is lying).

Tomorrow I go visit my stepmother, who’s laid up in a hospital in Manhattan with a very screwed up foot. It’s a long story, but she was run over by a car several decades ago and in the intervening years began to favor one foot, an action that was imperceptible but very damaging over the long term. Four operations later, she’s dealing with a bad infection, which now seems to be under control thanks to super antibiotics. The next step (ha ha) is recovery from the infection and then some physical therapy.

With two perfectly good, fully functional feet at my disposal, I am grateful that I can walk. Running is a bonus.

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