No Cracking Up!

Spring race season is upon us! It actually began in March, but my first race of the season is this coming Saturday. The Race for Clean Air is a nice little 5k along West River/MLK Drive (or is it Kelly? I can never remember). The following Friday evening I will do the four-mile out-and-back party run (Kelly Drive to a bar). And then the big behemoth: The Broad Street Run. This is ten miles of scenic delights for which I’ve been training like crazy over the past four months.

When I say that I have been training like crazy, the insanity is a literal reference. I have made a lot of progress, and I am deeply paranoid about protecting it. I’m running as many miles per week as I did to train for the marathon, but I’ve pushed myself to get faster and faster. I have a new ability to run better than I ever have before. That ability is like a fragile little egg nearing hatching, and I am the mother bird perched on top of it chirping furiously at any threats. An example: at Passover dinner, my poor brother-in-law innocently backed up his chair over my toe. Was I magnanimous and forgiving of this purely unintended and ultimately harmless mistake? Nope. After my hugely theatrical yelp, I shot him death rays from my eyes through the remainder of dinner, all the while hissing “Broad Street Run” under my breath.

The basis for my fear is simple. When it comes right down to it, my progress at this year’s Broad Street Run is now mostly out of my hands. I’m trained. I’m ready. I’m worried. This list of things that could ruin the race dances through my head. I could have a bicycle crash, like the one that kept me out of last year’s race. I could sprain my extremely weak ankle. It could be hot and humid on race day, conditions that destroy me. Even the threat of thunderstorms that morning will impair my run, and could keep me out of the race entirely. Sadly, I’m not even trying to get into the top half of the 16,000 expected participants. I just want to shave a few minutes off my best time.

So, I’m nuts. I’ve let my leisure, supposedly stress-reducing activity utterly unnerve me. I can’t even imagine what a wreck I’ll be if I run New York in November. Oy vey.