Warped!

I'm feeling a little warped from trying to adjust to the EIOP. However, I continue to have no prospects for retiring to an Italian villa.

After reading the culmination of the Everest adventure, in which most everyone died, I'm less psyched than I was last Sunday to begin another week of Extreme Running. The attractions of mountaineering and marathoning had struck me as similar. But Thursday and Friday, I cheered myself on to running by considering the relative ease of an endeavor that requires no oxygen mask and no protection against hundred-below-zero gales.

I am signed up to run the National Marathon in Washington, DC, next Saturday. It will be my fourth running of the race (I ran it in 2008, 2009, and 2011), but my first since it became part of the Rock 'n' Roll series. I will get to check out a new course and experience my first Rock 'n' Roll marathon. I've never run a marathon in the series before, but in many races I've passed volunteers playing music from the sidelines. It makes a difference! I remember in particular when a satisfyingly bitter Alanis Morissette song quickened my step along a waterfront trail in Hartford, where I matched a PR I have never approached again.

In comparison to an Everest summit push, a marathon is a short adventure: that's what I will keep telling myself. If I keep a steady heart and mind, a few short hours will carry me to my goal.

EIOP

The day of the Pope's retirement, February 28, came and went (see "Running through Pain"). I watched the news coverage as the final moments of the papacy ticked away. I ran that day in misery. I had thought to get a rest myself from what has become my routine. The whole media spectacle around the Pope's departure filled me with melancholy. Or jealousy, more accurately, as I yearned for a helicopter to snatch me away into a different life.

I am tired: yesterday I felt I didn't care if I ever made it to Boston, or Luxembourg either. Today I started reading about an expedition to Mt. Everest, and the tale stirred familiar longings. I felt again the lure of pushing against a perceived limit. I reflected on the way trivialities fall away and the moments crystallize into purity. I thought maybe I could forge ahead after all. But of course, it is Sunday and thus a no-running day. My dreams required no immediate action.

Still, I have a plan. I am implementing Emergency Interim Operating Procedures (EIOP). Circumstances compel me to suspend--temporarily, I insist--my weekly mileage goal. For now, I shift the focus to the day by day. I will do what I can. And I won't speculate too hard about the future.

No helicopter is coming to whisk me away. If I make it to Boston this time, I must do it through my own resources. In spite of this week's dire musings, I may get there. I do not want another letter from the BAA informing me that I failed to complete the Boston Marathon! Oh, well, at the very least, I have an awesome T-shirt from Myrtle Beach.