Boldly running where I've never gone before

My running lately has been sporadic and slow.  I’m uninspired, uninclined and unimpressed.  I’m sitting here in a hotel room in Peoria with the Steamboat Classic 15k less than one hour away, and I don’t want to go.

At a time when I’ve been “thinking outside the box” and pushing myself to do things I’ve never done before in an effort to make myself better (like hiring a trainer, ordering special food and joining a marathon training group), physically and mentally it feels like I’m moving backwards.

The diet is a bitch to stick to, the weather has thwarted much of my training and my spirit is as low as it’s ever been.  I expected the CPAP machine to fill me with vigor and desire.  Of course it hasn’t, because I’m still getting used to the damn thing.   The Bistro MD food is delicious but it didn’t erase my shameful lust for burgers and fries.  The trainer and the group are great but sometimes represent more obligations for me to dread.

I looked at the past few years’ results for this race and saw that I am likely to come in last.  Dead, stinking, ridiculous last.  I’ve done it before and hated it.  But yes, *somebody* has to be last.  In one way it could be a testament to courage, in that nobody else as slow as me has taken on this race.  But when yours is the name preserved in html for all time as ‘LAST’, it still sucks.

But I’m here and I paid and I guess I’d better get out the friggin’ door.  If anybody out there sees my elderly bulbous form stagger across the finish line and uses it as inspiration to get their ownselves moving, I suppose I’ve done my job.

Yippee.