self-pity and loathing, your table is ready

There's a lot of happy crap I'd love to talk about this morning.


I'd love to tell you about my solid Saturday long ride, and how I ate right and rode fairly well, even though my legs were wiped from stuffing a week's worth of riding in 4 days.


I'd love to tell you about taking G to the pool and tossing him in the deep end and how fun it was, or great night we had, cooking out with friends and generally enjoying life, or even how the poet decided that night that instead of pacing Lauren in the second half of her 13.1, to run the entire thing with her and did amazingly well for not training at all or ever running even close to that distance ever in his life.  I'd even love to tell you about walk/running the last 2 miles of that race with them, telling loud stories about boyfriends that dumped me when I got my wisdom teeth out or boyfriends with huge dicks (everyone in a quarter-mile radius enjoyed that one) or boyfriends that did other ridiculous things to distract Lauren from the deadly puke & rally spiral. 


But I can't.


I've spent the past 8 months doing a pretty decent job distracting myself from the fact that I can't run.  Cycling, lifting, swimming, pool running, and just generally ignoring the giant dark place in my heart where running used to be because if I look directly at it, it will suck me under.  But lately, this has gotten more and more difficult.  I have a TON of friends who are rocking the fucking hell out of their fall marathon training, and I am so thrilled for them, but secretly, inside, I am burning with jealousy every time I hear about an amazing track workout or a 18-miler that went just right or any other huge milestone that they managed to climb on top of, plant a flag of awesome in and roar with triumph and beat their chest with joy at tearing up the miles.  And that's NOT WHO I AM.  Yesterday the poet ran a 13.1 on basically no training plan and he did amazing and I was so proud of him but I couldn't stop crying because walk/running the last 2 miles of it brought what I'm missing into very sharp focus.  I came home from brunch and canceled my pool running plans and got in bed with a half gallon of ice cream and a puppy and cried and felt sorry for myself for a few hours.  I. Am. Done. I'm in the darkness and I can't get out.  


And after a few hours I felt well enough to text two awesome girls who came and joined me in the pool after all and let me vent and cry and just generally be incredibly self-absorbed and I felt better.  And then I came home and drank beer and ate more ice cream and talked to another awesome lady who let me go through it all again and talked me back off the fucking ledge and then I felt better some more.  And this morning I called my ortho and left a message on his PA's voicemail saying.  My name is Katie and I am calling to schedule IT band release surgery on my right leg.  Please call me back.  As soon as you can. 


Because I can't take it anymore.  I am not strong enough.