Long Run Blues

Today was a difficult run. My mind wasn't into it, but my body seemed like to be running on automatic drive. Sounds like I was cruizin', but I wasn't. This is actually good news and bad news.

Let me start off with the bad news. So the bad news is that mentally I wasn't prepared. My mind was somewhere else. Last night, my wife wasn't feeling well. She was very cranky and sensitive. Then she complained that her right side was feeling numb. Her speech was slurring a little bit like somebody coming out of anesthesia from a dentist. She was also a bit confused. I was evaluating her very closely before I take her to the Emergency. (My wife is fighting breast cancer which is already in stage 4). Now this is not the first time this has happened. The last time it happened, she was released from the Emergency on the same day. Then she did an out patient EEG to test her for seizures and the results came out negative. Anyway, I decided that we should just get ready to go. But before we took off, I evaluated her one more time, and she said that she was feeling better. She asked for a pain pill and that helped her go to sleep. This morning, I left her feeling very tired and achy.

So that was the bad news part. My mind was with her, but I had to show up my butt for my long run as scheduled. Now the good news is that I just kept running and running. It felt like turning the power on on my legs and they kept going. But here is what made the run difficult. As soon as I think about my wife, my legs seemed to start getting weary. I wouldn't be surprised though, because my legs are not really powered mechanically. Normally what I see happening is that I start to feel my legs get tired, then I tell my brain to send a message to my legs to push, push, push. This time my legs weren't tiring, until they get out of synch with my mental state.

I was eager to go back home after the run of 20 miles. I was tired and I didn't like the feeling. But running 20 miles should make you tired, you fool! But no, I felt weary. So I got home and checked in with her. She was sleeping but seemed to be feeling better. I left her for awhile and sat in front of her. I said a little prayer of thanks. Then I drank my fluids for recovery. Slowly I felt better and my mood became more relaxed. I'm glad that my wife is out of danger and feeling much better.