Pheidippides Was A Real Man

Well, boys, I figured out over the weekend that I have to drop out of the marathon. The shin splints (that I think I was whining about when I was down at WWC graduation) haven’t gone away, and my acupuncturist/physical therapist said I need total rest until they don’t hurt at all anymore, which could be up to two weeks. Then I can start with one mile, and then I increase that by 10% every time I run. I did the math, and that does not get me to 26.2 by November 1.

I know we’ve talked ad naus. about sports, but indulge me for one more post.

This sucks, because the marathon was a big thing in my life. I don’t really have that many things: my cipher of a day job, my writing, my friends and family (but no family of my own), and the marathon. It was sort of a parallel goal with writing, you know? ‘Today I will complete one task with a very specific measure and one with no real measure at all.’ One made the other easier to bear.

But also it sucks because I feel like a coward. I could run the marathon. I could swim for a few weeks and then get up to ten miles, let’s say, and then try to fudge it. A couple of friends have fucked their legs up trying to do similar things, but the very high likelihood is that I’d be more or less fine. A real man would find a way, right? and other people overcome way way worse things than this to run it (e.g. missing limbs).

There are legitimate medical reasons to drop out, but there’s also a big part of me that doesn’t ever want to run the marathon. That part wants to have a sick day for the rest of its life and watch TV and eat mochi balls and drink crème de menthe. I’ve been training myself not to listen to that part when I’m running. So Mr. Crème de Menthe is loving the shin splint excuse.

And if I do follow the advice of my physical therapist, I’ll feel fine on race day. That’s the most galling thing. I won’t be on the sidelines on crutches, I just won’t be in good enough shape to finish.

I also committed to raising $2500 for a charity to get into the race. I not only have to let them down, but I also gave them my credit card as security against the money I don’t raise, and I don’t know if they’ll give me dispensation for an injury.

Anyway, part of me writing this on Heart Arcade is just to bitch to my friends, and I know in the grand scheme this is small potatoes: running races only happens in a life that doesn’t have any life-threatening threats. But I’m writing about it here also to wonder about discipline and structure with writing, too.

As I said above, running was a temporary structure for writing, but I just haven’t known what I’m doing with writing for a while. And I mean this less in an existential way and more in a practical way. Am I really trying to write a book of short stories, or am I just starting a thousand different things to distract myself from the hard work of digging into anything?

I have a novel idea that I’m not that fired up about, but am I not that fired up because I’m just too scared or lazy to get into something that involved? Pretty soon it’s going to be a year since I graduated, and it’s not like I have five polished stories up and ready to go. And just as the shin splints are a helpful excuse for Mr. Crème de Menthe, so is the well-known mysteriousness of the writing process.

It would be helpful to have a metric, is what I’m saying. ‘Getting a Novel Into the Western Canon’ is a little grandiose (and the Western Canon ain’t what it used to be); ‘Two Hours of Writing A Day’ is a little too local. ‘Making Work That Causes Readers I Respect to Laugh In Recognition of Truth’ is probably the closest thing, but I don’t know exactly what that looks like on a Tuesday when I’m tired and want to watch re-runs. ‘Three Finished Stories by the End of the Year’? ‘Always Have Two Stories in the Inboxes of Magazines, No Matter What’?

I guess dropping out of the marathon has made me take another look at exactly what I’m trying to do, and where the runway lights are.

I know I’m supposed to be the wise sage after living for six more months in The World than you guys have lived, but what lights are you flying by right now?