Drawbacks on the Mountain

There are some drawbacks to being a runner. Such as:

- No matter how many times you wash your favorite bra, it still smells like the HS boys locker room, minus the nauseating dose of cheap cologne.
- You start with good intentions, but after a number of years you are wearing spandex and wicking material, sports bras and elastic waists, everywhere - not just on the run.
- You have an entire cupboard full of gadgets and supplements and random lose items like safety pins and race bag samples that you can't part with and the pile has grown and when you open the door things fall out on you and your spouse shakes his head.
- You end up with all these pretty useless handheld bottles, once the hand straps have broken, but you feel guilty throwing them away because the bottles still work.
- You become much freer in your talk and expression of bodily functions - such as belching, farting and toileting in places that are a little too urbanized to call "the woods".
- Specific to distance runners: you lose all sense of realism and balance. You will look down on yourself for "only" doing a 20 miler this weekend, or skipping the last 10 of 20 hill repeats up Thomas Avenue because you were tired.

However, by far the worst thing about being a runner is being a runner who can't run. I don't care if it's cause you overdid it and are just sore, or you broke, tore or otherwise damaged some essential piece of your bodily equipment - it stinks. Even if you are laid up for a week, that week can grow in your mind to be THE END OF THE WORLD! And you might think I AM DOOMED FOR MY NEXT RACE! And you'll see another runner and think I HATE YOU! DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO RUN RIGHT NOW AND YOU ARE JUST TAKING IT FOR GRANTED LIKE IT'LL ALWAYS BE THERE!?

And even if it's worth it. Even if you hurt yourself because you were finishing your first marathon, (like my friend Gael who tore her ITB during the Shamrock Marathon), or finishing your first 100 ( like my husband who broke his leg at mile 80, but went on to finish anyhow), or like climbing some really fucking amazing mountains (like these:)

it still sucks. And running is all you can think about. When can you do it again? Why are my legs so uncooperative? And you think these fatalistic thoughts like: I am going to get so fat not running! and I am going to be a total bitch to everybody if I can't run again soon! and I'll never get to sleep tonight with all this energy! and Boy, am I going to suck at my next race! And you obsess and obsess, because for runners, running is the only thing that will scratch the itch. Walking or biking or swimming just won't do it.

But if you look at what I put my body through on Giant Mountain and Rocky Ridge Peak, I earned my hiatus. And when I can walk again without my knees buckling, I'll be back out there. Like this never happened.