Do as I say, not as I do

If anyone I remotely cared about asked me about what they should do after a couple weeks of missed runs and travels, I would have told them to take it easy.  Ease back into things.  If you jump right back into your routine after missing too many runs you risk injury.

So what did I do?  Ran 38 miles in 3 days.  After missing a gazillion runs, I decided to put my long run & two of my medium length runs 3 days in a row.  What can I say?  I have 12 hour shifts everyday for the foreseeable future and the idea of running a 10 miler after work was less appealing that pushing through today.  My legs are not going to let me forget the stupidity of it, but I think I fortunately avoided injury other than a couple small blisters and some chafed skin.

The best part of my run was when I got the trots.  Yup.  Always an adventure.  Looping back towards a park where there is a bathroom, I started getting increasingly concerned about how much further it was.  My legs felt like lead and my stomach was not happy.  Trying to gauge how much longer I had, I glanced down at my Garmin to see this:

Ahhh!  6.66?  When I've got the trots!?!  I'm not superstitious, but when you've got bathroom on the brain I don't need any bad luck.  Lucky for me, the park was around mile 7 so I pushed my lead legs as fast as they could go and made it in the nick of time.

A little trick I used to get through the run was something I've mentioned before.  Smile!  Every time I felt a grimace across my face I would force a smile.  So simple, but it really works.  You can't help but end up with a real smile.  Especially if you start with a goofy smirk:

Don't try this around small children.
They might cry.

Things Fall Apart

The past few days have been a whirlwind, and today is forecasted to be more of the same.  I woke up early this morning, however, so I have a little time to give you a quick update.

Do you want the good news, or the good news?  (Neither is what you might expect.)  First of all, I didn't sh*t my pants or die.  Bonus.  So, yes.  That is to say that I didn't make my goal of Boston Qualifying.  Which comes to the second piece of good news:  I learned a lot.  Primarily:  Don't run a marathon after driving 2500 miles across the country.  Bad idea.  Despite this having been my 7th marathon, I've never been in as much pain as I have been after CIM.  During the race my hamstrings felt like rubber bands that were about to snap.  Where does it hurt now?

This has led to a lot of inner comic relief as I've been interviewing non-stop for residency positions over the past fews days.  Being in the medical field, the campus tours tend to always involve taking the stairs since we're "healthy people" and all.  Normally, I actually like that they do this.  Since CIM, however, I have merely been trying to not look like a crazy person when walking.  Taking the stairs is a constant struggle to not look like someone from the Ministry of Silly Walks.  Let's just say that at least I get a good laugh from myself.