[foot] One mile at a time..
My goal for this month was 100 miles. 100 miles of walking over 31 days. A distance I used to cover in a 24-ish hour period, now extended 30x. To someone so used to running “an easy 20 miler” it seems simple. Doable.
And it has been. Sort of… I hit 100 miles around October 15 and I was SO EXCITED because I achieved my goal in half the time. Nevermind the fact that my lower back aches, my foot is angry and my opposite knee and hip is jacked up. Or that my blood sugar is wrecked bc my new medication can’t really keep up with my growing carb needs and I still haven’t gotten that OK from the cardiologist to resume such exercise. This is what it means to feed the ultra-addiction. Mentally it’s thrilling, physically, well, physically it’s debilitating. Of course, part of my reason for making 100 miles this month my goal (and subsequently surpassing it) is that I also felt the need to sign up for the April 2024 version of the race that I love more than almost any other, Salton Sea. Every now and then I go back and read my blog post I wrote just before my 6th finish, whereby I reflected on the previous 5. That year I showed up to the pre-race checkin with my favorite person in tow, Leslie, who’s done 3 of the 6 with me.
We ran great that year—we even beat 24 hours for the full distance, a true goal of ours that had carried us in prior years. It was hot and then it was cold but it didn’t matter because it was us doing the thing we loved to do together, as a team.
“I have 6 months to train for it! I can do this! I’ve done it before and I must defend my title of being the most finishes on record!” All things that I tell myself as I rub my aching joints, stretch my tired arches and continue to perform the PT exercises day in and day out. Things I use to convince myself that I’m still invincible, that I still want—no, need to do, in order to prove something to myself as I near my 50th birthday. At some point I won’t be able to do this anymore but today is not that day. So I lace up my shoes, step out into the darkness and begin to make my way towards some destination that is 6 months in the future and 6 years in the past, one slow mile at a time.
Back: Walking on a Thin Line
