Doing the Diary Doo-Dah

Since my last post probably freaked everybody out, today I repent from my wicked ways by falling into line and doing the diary doo-dah.

This weekend, Tim began training with me. I hope he will decide to complete the marathon. He is much more athletic than I am and he has always (without laughing) supported my puny attempts to get or stay in shape over the years we’ve been together. A knee injury a long time ago caused him to curtail his running. Maybe running with me will force him to train slowly enough that his knee will be okay and, thus, I can find some portion of solace in being so poky. Tim has never completed a full marathon and expresses some doubt about wanting to do it now.

As for me, I am keeping the idea of the marathon itself hidden away in the fog that is the outer reaches of my mind. I can barely stand to think about what I have to do this evening. I live in denial all day long: I’m not gonna do it, I’m not gonna do it, not gonna, not gonna . . . then, that sinking feeling as my shoes hit the pavement, oh, crap, I’m doing it.

This may seem backward to you. Unlike most of my bizarre behavior, I can trace this particular twist in my vine to the root. When I was a child, my mother used to take me to the dentist without mentioning where we were going. After about 4th grade or so, you’d think I’d have realized that when she suddenly showed up at school and pulled me out of class in the middle of the day, something might be up. A traitorous part of me must have known and was keeping silent to hold off full-scale panic and mutiny in the rest of my brain until it was simply too late to save me.

If I can just manage to keep the discomfort-hating piece of my mind in the dark (Marathon? Did somebody mention a marathon?), there will be no problem. When we all meet the day before the run, it’ll be easy to pick me out. I’ll be the one who doesn’t have a clue what we’re doing there.