Not Getting Any Easier

ChiRunning was a bust. It shouldn't have been. The class was interesting, albeit a little close to how I imagine a meeting called "So, you want to be a Scientologist," but I'll get to that in a minute. The more important thing is that I basically flunked out.

My right leg was killing me. It still kind of is. Walking hurts. I have been icing as much as possible, and I am spending some extra time at the physical therapist tomorrow to regroup. I'm just not thinking about the future right now. I want to run. Now. The weather is perfect, and I am totally grounded.

I was really frustrated Saturday night, and feeling really discouraged, when my friend Laura gave me the full pep talk treatment. That really did help. She ran a marathon a few years ago after a pretty major injury. What's hilarious is that a few hours later, I was talking to some guy (Jason? Joe? Matt?) and we got onto the topic of the marathon. I mentioned that I was having a problem with my leg, and he was like "Yeah, it doesn't look good. I'm pretty sure you're not going to run it."

Who says that? It was just weird enough to be about the funniest thing I heard all year. Oh, that dream you have of overcoming that huge challenge? Nope, I can't see that working out. My advice: give up. It would have been some pretty effective psychology if he wasn't just sort of accidentally being a jackass.

But the incident did kind of reinforce that I am still so running that marathon. Maybe at the end, I'll be all clever and cute and say something like "that was for you, Jason or Joe or Matt."

Oh, ChiRunning -- the best part was that Larry, the instructor, kept citing the guy who wrote the book in this strange, adoring way.

There was a lot of "Danny says it is best to imagine the dotted line in the road pulling you forward from the chest," or "Danny says to drink this Kool-aid."

Ok, he didn't really talk about Kool-aid. The thing is, a whole lot of what Larry was teaching made sense. The idea is basically to make the trunk of your body rigid and stable, and then lean forward to allow gravity to help draw you forward. But "Danny" doesn't appear to have any training whatsoever in sports medicine or any physiological discipline. His resume is entirely made up of his own physical feats. It's just a little dubious.

So, I am totally down with giving some of the techniques a shot, but if you catch me running around repeating "Danny says," immediately stage the intervention. Please don't wait until the ATF gets involved. Thanks.