Applying the Denial

Well, I am still running on my leg with the painful shin. I just apply some Denial and I am good to go. Denial is a great product, you can get it right off the shelf and all it really costs is some breakthrough pain in the morning. So far the costs have been manageable, although it does seem to get a little bit more expensive every day. But as long as it is just a little bit at a time I think I can manage it. I attribute these rising cost to inflation (aka inflammation), but just so long as the price rises slowly I think I will be able to keep up with it. I am really not sure what I will do if the cost suddenly spikes and I find myself no longer able to afford it. My whole identity as an athlete right now is wrapped up in doing this 100 mile race. I want it very bad and I am willing to put up with a lot. I just don’t see myself doing anything else right now. Well, check that, I can, but I don’t want to do them. Maybe I can spend some time on the Elliptical Trainer at the gym as an alternative to running once a week. At least the motion is similar to running. Last night when I came home from work, I was feeling very tired, slightly nauseous and the Denial was wearing off a bit so my shin was feeling a bit painful. I really wanted to just go to sleep and call it a day, but doing that is not how a 100 mile runner is made. So I lathered on some more Denial, took 3 ibuprofen (works great in combination with Denial) and went out for an 8 mile run. I have to say that once I got going, I started to feel much better. I was very pleasantly surprised. Sometimes when I am tired I get a mile from home, run out of juice and wind up walking. Not last night though. My legs carried me very well and I had a spiffy 8.1 mile run in 1:11:16; only 6 seconds slower than my run on Tuesday night. Not bad considering how I felt when I started and the fact that I once again overdressed. So to answer my Twitter friend Darkgracie’s question “you are crazy! your shin will just hurt worse... is living in denial working for you? *wink*”, - yes, denial is working for me so far. People live in denial all of the time and survive. Denial can take you a long way. I just need my denial to take me 100 miles.