Wednesday, Apr. 28, 2004
Dear Diary:

My knees and hips are giving out under the mileage I've been logging to train for the 10K in June. I've been trying to run through the growing discomfort, but I know that you ignore joint pain at your peril. I had knee surgery in my 30's. I don't want to go through it again.

I'm back on the elliptical trainer four days a week because at least on it my joints don't take the pounding they take on the road or treadmill so I don't get the pain. Not being able to run all my miles on the road, though, makes me feel old and defective.

Really old.

Really defective.

In that incredibly cheery frame of mind, I walked into the gym today and claimed my elliptical machine, ready to throw myself a world class sulk/pity party. I set the machine to do a tough one hour hill run, clamped on my headphones, turned the volume setting on my CD player to "Eardrums? Who Needs Eardrums?" and despite Audrey's incredible dance mix I could feel my mood getting more sour by the second.

Normally doing 5.5 miles on a hill setting floods my system with so many endorphins that I'm in my Oh So Happy Place by the end of my run no matter what my mood's been when I passed through the gym doors. But today? Not even a buttload of endorphins could make a dent in my self-pity fest.

My trainer was booking off at the end of my workout and our paths crossed in the locker room. She had an armload of books, so to make small talk I asked her if she was taking a course. Well, it turns out that a young boy is going to be coming to the gym soon for rehabilitation after some sort of leg cancer and my trainer is studying the best ways to help him.

So yeah, there's going to be a kid at my gym soon who's been slugged by life and I'm whining because my knees and hips hurt a bit and in order for them to heal I can't do everything I want.

Clearly, if anyone needs a slugging, it would be me. Preferably with a clue bat since I seem woefully short of clues right now.

Part of this is that I've invested so much of myself in training for this 10K. I am not a natural runner. I have no grace. It all comes hard for me. The run itself is the first Sunday in June and I have yet to finish six miles on a road surface, mostly because my poor knees go nuts. I so desperately want to finish this. I am so very afraid that my body will let me down.

The other part of this, of course, is my upcoming birthday in May. 53. The aging thing.

Hey, I'm not thrilled about what aging does to faces and bodies. But you know, I never was a pretty woman so I didn't put a big plenty of my self-esteem in those places. The thing is, though, that for the spousal unit and I to continue to live in this isolated house we both have to be fit and strong.

I love this place. The spousal unit literally built our home with his own two hands. We created fertile soil where there was only trees, stumps, rocks and clay. Over the 27 years we have lived here, I have made this place bloom. I mark the seasons by my gardens. How will my years have any shape when I have to leave my gardens behind?

But I also know that nothing is forever. I have tried to be practical about this. I realize that there will come a point when we will have to leave, it's inevitable. It's just that I want that day to be far, far away and sometimes � sometimes that day doesn't seem so very far away at all.

I love the golden light of the setting sun.Spring is always a frantic season for us, but this year I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed. I look out my window and instead of savouring the soft glow of a fading spring evening illuminating budding trees, I see another day slipping through my fingers with not quite enough accomplished.

Forget this. I'm boring even myself because I'm not going anywhere with this. It's time to get a cup of tea.

Everything is better after a cup of tea.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 353.97 miles. Ten percent there rubber duck.Ten percent there rubber duck. 25 per cent thereTen percent there rubber duck.
Oh man. This is going to be hard
Goal for 2004: 1,000 miles - 1609 kilometers

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