A Fine Mess . . .

Well, we are now a little more than 2 weeks away from the first checkpoint in our plan ("Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -- John Lennon), the JFK 50 Miler. Sadly, life hasn't managed to happen in any way that would excuse us from this race. Despite my best efforts, neither Cory nor I have sustained any debilitating injury, been the subject of incarceration, or been committed to a mental institution so as to render us unavailable for the race. In light of the postings on this blog, I find the last fact to be particularly troubling. Doesn't anybody keep an eye on severely disturbed individuals?

With 16 days to go, the serious training (clearly insufficient) is over, and the time for easing up (and ballooning to the size of the "Ghostbusters" Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man) is upon us. Now is the time for reminding ourselves of all the things we should have done better in our training, and of all the well-deserved suffering that is waiting for us on race day because of our pathetic character flaws.

In short, now is when we finally understand the way our friends looked at us when we said we were going to run 50 miles--like we were either liars or idiots. Dang it, why did they have to be so right? And now that the race is almost upon us, we are forced to acknowledge that we would rather be idiots than liars. Curse you, Virtue!! Who could have foreseen that Cory or I would bow at your altar?!

The main solace I have is the knowledge that 10 or 11 hours after I start the race, it will be over. And though I must face the fact that I will spend most of the race creeping at a petty pace, rather like the whining schoolboy (who himself creeps like the snail) unwillingly to school, it is also true that this is enough, t'will do. And at the end, the finishers, one and all, can claim, like the dog that sings opera, "It really isn't important whether we did it well. The important thing is that we did it at all."

And, for me, that solace will be accompanied by the further thrill of having Cory announce upon finishing, "You know, Jim, don't you, that the Comrades Marathon will be a lot harder."