My legs really hate my brain right now.  If there were a way to measure such things, my lower extremities would hold a grudge like no other.  The reason being I’ve been training for the Tokyo Marathon for about three months now, mostly consistently though I do confess to a bout of procrastination or two.  Actually, when it comes to stuff like this, I must say that I’ve been pretty damn good about sticking with this thing.

I’ve always been a pretty decent runner.  Never fast but always good with distance.  Indeed, I’ve run thousands of miles chasing balls around soccer fields and basketball courts during my life.  This, no doubt, has wreaked untold havoc on my feet, knees and lower back, each of which had done a brilliant job of hiding their distaste for me throughout most of my sporting life.  Like good soldiers, they took their orders and carried them out in honorable fashion, rarely questioning my instructions or rebelling in the form of excruciating pain.  Even when pushing them to their limits with ever-increasing distances as part of my training, they appeared to become the body’s manifestation of semper fidelis, wholeheartedly carrying out the mission of their misguided general despite harboring a deep skepticism about the grand plan.  Unfortunately, it would appear that I took this armistice for granted, for now all out war has been declared.  As fate often dictates, complacency ultimately gets its due.

Things were going pretty well for a while there.  After setting a solid foundation with a month or so of 5-8 mile runs, I began to work my way up to distances that would elicit responses of distorted facial expressions of “are you f*&king crazy?” when I told others what I had done earlier that day.  And my body was feeling pretty good, even though I would hit a wall of sorts once my distances eclipsed the ten-mile mark.  Upon reflection, I now realize that’s usually when the battles first began, once we crossed over into double digit territory.  It’s when my feet would cease feeling like extensions of my body and would more closely resemble blocks of cement clumsily attached to my ankles with barbwire.  My upper thighs would begin to move like they were being held back by huge rubber bands and my lower back would start to feel like the vertebrae had all collapsed on each other like a closed accordion.  That’s how the body rebels against the mind.  It either shuts down completely or starts to work in reverse, conspiring against whatever lunatic goal your mind has set its sights on.

The physical pain is just the beginning and seems to pass as a temporary, ethereal state of existence.  Somehow, you find a way to power through it, damned and determined to get in the miles you think you need that day as part of your training.  Once the endorphins kick in and you float your way to the finish, you look to melt into the nearest chair or couch.  But this is a dangerous proposition, for an attempt to rise from such comfort is met by a painful reminder of how betrayed your body feels by your latest machinations.  And so it’s the after-party that really sucks.  I’ve found that my ability to function as a normal human-being is impeded in a meaningful way on days when my runs eclipse double digits in mileage.  Beyond the aches and pains that go along with my joints screaming out for attention, my ability to decipher common vernacular is rendered useless.  My response times slow down, my hand-eye coordination is thrown way off, and my entire body feels tired in the strangest of ways, kind of like transferring the fatigue one feels in the eyelids after pulling an all-nighter to the entirety of one’s body.  Proud of myself for getting the run in, I’m left bittersweet by the notion that the balance of my day will be spent in a catatonic state.

Wise people often say that running, like most things in life, is best enjoyed in moderation.  By extrapolation, that would mean that marathons probably aren’t the best of ideas.  To that I would say humbug.  For no other reason besides stubborn pride, I have to check that box that says “marathon” on my list of things to accomplish before I die.  They also say that running on pavement is really bad for your legs, which bear the brunt of the energy transfer that occurs when two largely immovable objects (my legs) continuously pummel another even more immovable one (the concrete).  In order to spread out the force of each step, it is said that one should run on sand instead of pavement since it does a better job of absorbing and dispersing the power of each step.  To that I say there are no beaches in Tokyo.  And I must soldier on.

But I am no Marine with the intestinal fortitude to solider on.  Nor am I a monk who can meditate in the nude in the middle of snow-peaked mountains while “willing” a nearby rack of wet clothes to dry themselves.  For I am a failure in the department of mind over matter.  My body has rebelled in such a fashion that I must abandon my dream of completing the marathon, which pains me to have to write.  The reality is that, after months of punishment, my right leg is in a sorry state.  Usually around mile three, pain starts to emanate from the inside part of my right ankle before creeping up my shin around mile five and then settling into my knee at about mile eight.  After the runs my lower leg would absolutely kill.  And I could detect swelling around my shin along with some discoloration.  It could be shin splints or maybe even a small stress fracture.  I’ll never know because I decided against trying to navigate the Japanese medical system to figure it out.  My guess is that the doctor, after hours of exaggerated hand motions, tests and hundreds of dollars, would just tell me to give the leg a rest, which is exactly the same advice Lizzi gave me for free.  Whatever the injury is, I’ve cried uncle.  And by doing so, I’ve admitted that I’m too much of a wimp to run a marathon.  This has led to many sleepless nights.  Such failure does not rest well with the competitive among us.  Indeed, a part of my manhood was left by the gates of the Imperial Palace (where I would conduct my runs).

In the end, this is what a very dear friend of ours would call a “high SAT decision”.  There’s no sense in pushing one’s body beyond its limits just to check a stupid box, especially when doing so would likely have severe long-term implications.  And it’s worth noting that the marathon got its name from the legendary jaunt of Pheidippides from the greek city of Marathon to Athens, where he triumphantly announced that the Persians had been defeated by the Greeks in the Battle of Marathon.  And then he died from exhaustion.  Though he certainly ran with much more urgency than I ever would, I’m going to assume that the moral of that story is that humans should not run marathons.   And there’s my silver lining.

For those of you losing sleep at night wondering what it is that provides the graphic background in my blog title, wonder no more.  Below is the full picture, which I stumbled upon while perusing the net in search of something cool.  I’m not entirely sure what I meant to convey by including it in my title.  But that’s OK.  If Chris Martin of Coldplay can confess to not knowing what his song Yellow is all about, then I should be just fine.

This is one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen.  The noises this woman makes are downright amazing.

She even managed her own shoutout on The Family Guy.

And she got her own music video.

 PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.  Pretty cool stuff. 

I came across a couple stories while reading the papers today that reminded me of how everything is relative in this world:

• While we discuss humane logistics such as the payment of taxes and possible paths to citizenship for illegal aliens, Brunei recently revealed that it has flogged roughly 400 foreigners with rattan canes over the past five years for entering the oil-rich sultanate without valid travel documents or for overstaying their visas.
• While we celebrate diversity with exemplary appointments to some of the highest offices in the land (president, secretary of state, and attorney general, to name a few), the president of Sudan is about to be the first head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity related to atrocities committed against rival (non-Arab) tribes in Darfur.
• Meanwhile, the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is growing more strict with his Islamic code, condoning the murder of seven young women said to have “loose morals” who were “rightfully shot” by male relatives in honor killings.  He also said that women are the property of their husbands and that their only function is to bear children.  He also encourages men to take more than one wife.  I guess it’s better to diversify in the event you need to knock a couple off to preserve your honor.
• In somewhat related news, girls in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, which has just been handed over to the Taliban, got the “good” news yesterday that they would be allowed to attend school, so long as they wear scarves and veils that cover their faces.  Awfully nice of those Taliban guys, no?
• And while we lament the precipitous decline of our life savings, at least we don’t have to worry about being devoured by wild tigers, a fate that three Indonesian villagers met last week.

Sometimes a little perspective can help bring this world and our own personal travails into finer focus.