out of the miry clay

My plan for Saturday was to test out the hip and stop if it got too painful. I thought up a route that would get me back to the apartment at the 7 and 15 mile marks, in case I needed to stop or walk home. I pretty much followed my typical Saturday preparation routine, but figured the chances of me actually completing the scheduled 18 miles were pretty slim. Like, 4% or something small like that.

And sure enough, a half mile in, my hip started to flare up. It looked like it would be a short jog. But, as I kept going, aside from a few moments of sharper pain, I began to wonder if the more even, dull discomfort I was feeling was something that I could work through this time around. I decided to try and make it 7 miles.

At the five mile mark at Lakewood Park, I finally decided to the try the Power Gel that I have toted with me in the past but had always shied away from ingesting (mostly because of warnings from anyone I knew that had used it). How to describe this stuff? I think this exercise will help (but really this gel tasted like it came from another planet):

1) Imagine what flavored yogurt tastes like.
2) Think about what it would taste like if someone did to yogurt what Doritos did to chips.
3) Remove any dairy component from your imagined substance.
4) Warm it up.

Pretty weird, extremely gross. All that said, I think it provided a boost. By that time, my hip was inexplicably feeling much better, and it was pretty much at pre-injury status by mile six (!). So I kept going, towards downtown.

It should be mentioned that I was powering through some My Chemical Romance songs at this point. It sometimes makes me feel like an eyelined, nail-polished, angsty teen to listen to them, but at this point, whatever works. Welcome to the Black Parade has been added to my official "good running songs" list.

Once I got downtown, I added a bit of distance to the route, so that I wouldn't feel as compelled to run into Edgewater to complete the mileage if I felt too tired once I was back on the west side. But when I did get back, I felt decent enough to head into the park, figuring that I would stop at the lower area and not run back up the park's main hill. But once there, I felt like I should at least get to the top of the hill. And once I was up there, I thought I might as well just run home. So I did.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2240016

As a child, a series of commercials for a Time-Life book series called Mysteries of the Unknown used to scare me out of my wits. They would show dramatizations of supposedly paranormal incidents as an ominous sounding narrator would describe each event and intone, "how do you explain this?"

So, in that spirit...

...and how do you explain this:
A man, unable to run more than three miles on a Wednesday morning due to a balky hip, is able to cover over 19 miles just three days later.

The effect is more pronounced if there is creepy music playing, but the fact remains: I went from hobbling a humbling few miles on Wednesday to yesterday casually ripping off by far the longest distance I have ever run. I cannot explain it, so I'll just accept that it happened and say, "thanks, God". Maybe the doctor will have some additional insight tomorrow. I was feeling pretty down in the dumps about my health earlier this week and how it might affect the marathon, so yesterday's workout came at a great time. It feels like things are back on track. Prayers would be appreciated as I'm sure there's a chance the injury could return, but for one day at least, running was fun again.