Midnight Run

At about 11:58pm last night I was reading a post in a running forum about losing motivation in running, while that's not exactly my situation—I still very much LOVE running, I'm just currently in a main event no-holds-barred battle royale with an unforgiving feral beast in the form of ITBS. The marquee above this event spells out INJURY VS. RECOVERY in thick red plastic block letters, though the promoters were missing a second "Y" so they just broke an "X" to replace it, from the streets below, hardly anyone notices the difference, but I know it's there, and it bothers me—I took note of one piece of advice in particular, "Just put your shoes on and get out the door". The advice was a floating piece of driftwood in a crocodile infested river that I immediately jumped on to get across to the other side. Shortly after midnight I was out on the cold-cold streets of Japan, running through the cold-cold Nippon night, trying to bang out that 4 miler from the recovery schedule I had pretty much given up on attempting until the moment I began accomplishing it.

Pretty much the first 1.6km (mile-ish) was fine. I cruised the shallows of darkness like a slumbering shark, who despite a preternatural instinct to attack the pavement moving below, drifted by surprisingly reserved.  Too bad I can't say the same for the next 1.6km. The pain in my knee threw it's head back and howled at the moon: pain was a wolf pack nipping at my tendons as I passed beneath the lamplight lining the きゅうえどがわ waters. I reached the turnaround point and walked beyond it for a few minutes, then stretched. Despite the late midnight hour, a decent amount of other runners passed by this same path. One guy swished by so nimbly in bright white pants he looked like nothing more than a blur; though my eyes were somewhat watery from the chilly winds I was facing, so speed at that moment may have been an illusion. Still, he was surely faster than me.

A little bit looser from the stretching I headed home; 3.2km away, strong winds now cutting against my choice in direction, and a painful wolf pack with jaws hinged tightly around my knee, it wasn't easy. I'm not sure if I was stupid for pushing along, or just tenacious (a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, perhaps), but I made it home running the whole way. I hit up a second bout of stretching and iced the left knee. I should probably be more mindful of my limits here so fresh off the marathon course, but I can't help but crave that long distance run. There's something in me that enjoys the thrill of enduring the distances. Hal Higdon suggests taking it easy for the month following a marathon race, but he's also a man who stacked up 6 marathons on 6 consecutive weekends, so we all recover differently. It's also worth noting he was no novice when he attempted that feat. Training is once again around the corner. Not for another marathon, not yet at least, but there's a 10K (6.2 miles) race at the Imperial Palace a few weeks down the road that I wholeheartedly want to take part in. If this ITBS pain doesn't leave me burnt on the side of the road, the Higdon intermediate 10K training schedule  starts on Monday. Here's hoping all goes well...