How'm I s'posed to get any ridin' done?

Horses running away
Originally uploaded by niznoz

The PT says she thinks my lower legs just didn't absorb the those 50 mile weeks. Anyway, my calves stopped wishing to accompany me on my runs. So because I would not stop for them, they kindly stopped for me.

I haven't been able to run 10 feet let alone 10 miles, and I even walk funny, my gastrocnemius hanging off my bones like an old rubber band.

No runs for damn near 3 weeks now. I've filled the time halfheartedly with fitful core workouts, bouts with the elliptical machine, and some weight training. But I don't have much patience for staying put any more. I just want to run, calves be damned.

I trained for the last 4 months for next weekend's Brooklyn Half-Marathon. Now I'm not sure I can even run it, let alone "shred." Physical therapy a couple of times a week and there's some improvement. But it's a long-term thing, and one more week is unlikely to put much spring back in my step.

Will I have to give up my big race? And if I decide to race it, am I setting myself back? It's all a big ol' spin of the wheel, a soap opera, a blind date in a leaky boat.

So I wait, I wonder, I hope for fresh horses. If I can't run next week, the weekend will be peevish, and both my wife and I are tiring of the peevishness. But there're other races, and my running is a long-term thing. I could be a pretty fast old geezer someday. That's the whole point of The Long Rush.

I'm about to try a short run this afternoon. Maybe it'll knock something into place, or out of place, or some sense into my head, or just piss me off.

It's a long-term thing. Damn it.

UPDATE: Chased by dogs, paced by a rooster and some spooked cows, and netted in caterpillar silk, I managed to complete 6 miles, in a gorgeous, green late afternoon, at a decent pace. I'm vacationing in rural Pennsylvania, where the air, as they say, is like fine hooch. So it was a great thing to run again, even if it set me back, even if it hurt some, and even if the hills near did me in. I like to run.

Came back to help dig a big hole to roast tomorrow's pig in. And now it's time for a cocktail and fat fabulous steak. Like the man said, I am running to Paradise.