Learning to deal

As I stumbled to the end of mile 15 of my training run yesterday, I began having flashbacks. It's been eight months since I finished the Big Sur Marathon (or, since it nearly finished me). And it's been eight months since I had experienced a lot of the feelings I was having yesterday - a general aching, the feeling of calluses cutting into my feet (is that possible?), cramping in the muscles along my neck and shoulder blades, and a not so rosy outlook (how the hell am I going to finish this thing?). The one thing that kept me going was I really had no choice. 5-miles from home, it was a choice of walking it or keep on running. Walking meant twice the time spent in the "pain-zone." I knew that from the marathon. A walk break always seems to spiral into complete defeat. As I staggered to my driveway, I all to vividly remembered feeling this way at the marathon, but then looking at the mileage sign and seeing I had 11 more miles to go. It's a crushing realization, but one I've got to learn to deal with ... in running as well as life.