Spring Broke

Today, as I sat idly by watching my millionth college basketball game of the year, my girlfriend and nearly everyone else I know have just arrived in Panama City, FL. I was supposed to be on that trip.

Ah, yes, the pristine beaches, 80 degree weather, and a week of being a bum is nearly the greatest thing I could think to be doing at the moment. However, as my track coach has almost certainly read a chapter or two of Mein Kampf in the recent months, I could not make the trek for fear of being kicked off the team. The numbers are thinning, as 9 of my teammates have been extradited from the team just this past Monday. I therefore reasoned that my absence on the first day of practice this coming Wednesday would no doubt be the end of my career.

Thus, I am currently sitting in my basement post 8 mile adventure run in the snowy tundra of mid-Missouri eating a large plate of pasta, staring at my computer screen, and praying to all manner of deities that Kansas gets upset by VCU today. GO RAMS!!

On that note, this will be a short and unorthodox post, but I'll leave you (haha like anyone reads this thing) with a picture that epitomizes what Spring Break 2011 in Columbia Missouri is all about!

Thank god I get to run this Saturday!

If at first you don't succeed...

Words cannot describe the elation I felt yesterday at track practice. I crossed the boundary into my former life, if only for a moment, as I cruised around the tartan loop. I felt the lightness of a sit-and-kick specialist, waiting in the pack to devour the unsuspecting rabbits. I smelled the sweat as it trickled over the corners of my eyes, unabated by a wipe of my hands, as energy efficiency was top priority. I tasted the blood in the back of my throat, as breathing became raspy in the chilly March air. I sunk into nostalgia, as my legs cycled at an up-tempo clip, propelling my nearly pain free body around my favorite place in the universe. For a minute there, I was back!

And what a feeling it was! Quarters never felt so good! However, what is this lactic acid crap? It's been so long since I've felt it's burn on the first turn of each successive interval, but it was, in an odd, sadistic way, a comfort. I'm back down the long, arduous training path of the competitive miler, and right now, I feel on top of the world. Although my quarters were only run at around 66 second pace with a 3 min. rest in between, I warn my miler brethren, I'm coming for you.

My last post delineated all the troubles I've been having finding the desire to move forward, but that mindset is in the past. I now balance a tight rope of personal expectations and exciting prospects, with a pit of unsuspecting injuries, setbacks, obstacles, and probably a few poison-tipped spikes looming underneath. The fall will be the worst I've experienced, and most likely the last I can handle, but for now the rope is taut, and I plan to continue my journey, one step at a time, to the other side. Progression is all that I know, and a set back is not in my vocabulary.

But, as Missouri has been relentless this year at fueling and reinforcing depression, I'll have to wait until the freak spring break blizzard is over to run my 4 mile recovery run. It seems that 90% of the time I write in this blog, it's snowing or freezing. I hope the trend doesn't continue, as I don't plan on resting my fingers til the journey of my outdoor season is over.

I race one week from today. 7 days until I don that Missouri track singlet I've yearned so passionately to adorn for the past 3 years. That's 1,095 days. According to my running log, that's 5,723.5 miles! March 2008, I was a freshman, Brett Farve was just retiring (from Green Bay), Stephen Curry was tearing up the tourney in his Davidson uni, and George Bush was president! Surprisingly, gas was still the same price.... hmmm.

But in 7 days I'll traverse that unyielding oval four glorious, painful times, banking on pure guts and heart to stay with the pack, dig in deep, and kick desperately for a finish line I've longed so long to cross. However, I am completely aware that no world records will be broken, and I would be more than content to clock a 4:15 in my upcoming 1500. Anything to get a baseline value, where the only way to go is up. I love beginnings, and in a mere week, my new life as track athlete be born.

"The only race pace is suicide pace, and today feels like a good day to die" -Steve Prefontaine

Ten things I hate about me:

It's been so long since I've looked in the mirror and really thought about who I was, or how I want to define my life. Previous stages of my life simply melted together, faded quietly, or simply ended with a new beginning, but now as I the blinders are slowly being removed from my eyes, I can't really figure out how or what I'm supposed to feel. A concept larger than just losing running is dawning upon me; I am no longer an athlete. No doubt, countless others have dealt with this same realization, but instead of the injury filled frustration that has become my existence, they most likely have chosen to quit, embarking on life's bigger quests, such as college's laundry list of temptations. However, I've never been one to take the easy route, and my crutch and sole motivation in life has laid in the self-bettering pursuit of athletics. Nothing gives me more courage, more self-confidence, and more joy than training to the edge of exhaustion and pushing my body through limits only few have experienced. I love what I do, and being an athlete is who I am. Well, it was...

Now I am deprived of the only thing I truly loved. I can't run. I can't get into shape. I can't stay motivated, as the goal of becoming an all big twelve athlete is becoming almost invisible, clouded in a fog of bad luck and unfortunate occurrences. The dream is elusive, and bordering on impossible. Yet still I yearn for the day when a 14 mile run was possible, and every day it eats away at my soul, bit by bit, and only a true runner can understand the final outcome of perpetual steps in one direction. Just as the bits of rubber slowly eroded from the soles of the 70 mile a week runner I once was, the bits of desire and motivation are being eroded from my brain. Day by day, setback by setback. I hate the fact that one day I will have lost the determination to be a runner, and on that day I fear I will lack the motivation to do anything else.

I fear the inevitable is closer than ever, and I want to fight it. I make lists of weight lifting routines, swimming and biking schedules,... hell my background on my computer right now is a comeback schedule for running. However, it only seems to take a day or two for me to deviate from my lists. I can't follow along. I can't push myself. I don't have a reason anymore.

It's so sad to admit that I hate the person I am, but the worst part is I have no way to escape this imprisonment. I see what I want to be, I see how to do it, and then as soon as a window of opportunity is open and the goal seems obtainable, an obstacle emerges to knock me back down to ground zero. I've been so close so many times, but now I'm further away than ever. I can't help but ask the question, "Is it worth it,...again."

But I'm not totally done yet. Giving up doesn't come easily. I just need some warm weather to reenergize my agonizing bones. I want to be a runner. I am one at heart.