With the thermometer at a chilly forty degrees Saturday morning, I yanked the ratty Kent State sweatshirt over a LOSER t-shirt, motored six miles to Arcadia high school and huffed the orange emergency inhaler in the parking lot. Today's 5k goal: cross the finish in under 22:30. Despite this week's travel degradation, potential breathing issues and the alarming DNA connection with all things slug-like, indoor success -- I'd ran four miles in under twenty-nine minutes during the week -- made the goal seem achievable.
Sucking in copious amounts of cold air, size fourteens pounded Arcadia pavement, jogging through a series of turns and crossing mile one at the 7:18 mark. Right on pace, but already starting to suck wind. Working to maintain a decent stride, the huffs and puffs started taking over as I slogged past the two-mile point at 15:07. Running close to an eight minute second mile put 22:30 out of reach without a Mercury-like finish. Abandoning the goal, I glanced at the stopwatch and aimed to cross the line in under 23 minutes. A minute later, those hopes faded as the giant sucking sound of shrinking lung space grew.
During the event's eighteenth minute, people started passing me. Not the normal handful who cruised by my hapless form during the last mile of every event, but a dozen different runners of all shapes and sizes. At the 19:20 mark, the plague of pulmonary problems caused the lung capacity to degrade to hamster-like levels without the fuzz ball's wheel-spinning power (even worse, Dr. S's tests showed I'm allergic to long-toothed rodents too).
At minute twenty, I grabbed the top of my head with one hand, hoping to expand the constricted chest and somehow keep clumping. Striding by, a woman urged my struggling form to keep moving, telling me the finish was just ahead. It certainly was, but not quite as she envisioned. Just ahead proved too far and for the first time in my loser existence, I stopped. That's right, my slug-like shape quit clumping and started walking. The ugly reality of this morning's personal slime trail: if I kept running, the lack of oxygen might have caused a face plant into the mushy ditch beside the road.
Lacing fingers overhead, I trudged forward for a minute, wondering how the lungs had degraded to this sorry state. Sucking in deep breaths, I felt genuine sympathy for all the blokes I've passed over the last five years as they walked the last mile of numerous races. Up until today's gasping epiphany, I'd assumed walking runners burned themselves out; their failure to finish came from a lack of conditioning. Never, not once, had I considered that their legs might be in fantastic shape and their willpower stronger than mine, but another part of their very human form had betrayed them.
After a minute of walking, I decided to try and run the rest of Arcadia's torture trail. After another minute, huffs and puffs caused me to stop in front of a guy taking care of his lawn.
"You can do it," he said, pointing finger extending an index of inspiration toward the school. "The finish is just around that corner."
"I can't breathe," I gasped with both hands, once again, clasped overhead.
"I can't run either. My back gives me all kinds of problems."
With no air to reply, I turned trudging steps into a semi trot and struggled across the finish at the 25:37 mark: my worst 5k of all time. Pure stupidity -- my greatest asset (and not just in, as you well know, jogging) -- failed to propel the beleaguered, breath-less body the required 3.1 miles. Hitting the emergency inhaler as I drove out of Arcadia's parking lot, I realized that the pure stupidity of more effort -- which has conquered almost every physical challenge I've faced during my loser existence -- alas, would not fix this problem. Additional outdoor running, in fact, might create more challenges, rather than resolve them.
"How'd it go?" Will asked, sipping coffee on the porch as I shut the car door and walked toward our house.
"Not good. I couldn't even finish the race."
"You didn't finish?"
"No, I had to walk part of the last mile. I couldn't run a full 5k."
"What was your time?"
"25:37, my worst ever."
"Your worst ever?" Will said. "I'd kill to be under thirty minutes and you walk part of the race and still finish way ahead of me."
"Well, today almost killed me; I'm not sure I can run outside anymore."
"It's just the weather," she replied. "When it gets warmer, you'll be fine."
"I don't know about that," I said. "This just might be the end of mr loser."
****
Up next: "This Not Be Your Lucky Day"
Happy 2012!
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