Mile 7

My family and friends have bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations for the weekend of November 7.


Every other person I see seems to ask me, "Hey, how is your leg?" or "How is the training going?"


There's been something of a gap between Mile 6 and Mile 7 precisely because I don't know how to answer these questions. I've signed up for the marathon, did the base mileage, went to see my prophet, bought all these vitamins, and took Dan's suggestion and did ART... but my training in the last four to five weeks has either taken place sitting on a stationary bike or barely jogging four miles only to find that familiar pain in my right leg whispering, "Remember me?"

So what do I do? On the one hand, you don't want to disappoint your family and friends. But there are phone calls that need to happen that make me anxious here:


"Oh, hi, Mom, yeah I was joking about coming to New York for the marathon. What's that--you didn't raise a quitter. Oh, right, and did you raise me to look like a leg-dragging zombie? Yes, I think that has something do with it, well, then don't you think we can disagree about that. No, tell Dad there are no leg operations that are cheaper than the plane fare."


My parents are actually much kinder than this anticipated conversation, but as Dan said in Mile 6, "An injured runner is a danger not only to himself but to others." I can find as many reasons to make this about something other than my personal desires as you can possibly imagine, but the leg is still there whispering. It's hard to ignore. And perhaps it's a little demented to say that my right leg is answering the question "Hey, how is your leg?" or "How is the training going?" But so far it is. So what's it saying?


It's not making the phone calls to tell my friends and parents, but it's telling me that, contrary to my packet from the New York Road Runners, I might not be in and Marathon Derby is an endangered species.

Imagined Reconstruction of my Skeletal Remains to appear as a Dodo