My Body is a Wasteland

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH is the sound of me NEVER BLOGGING! Hi! I don't have a life anymore! Just sports! What's up?

That's not true, really. I also eat a lot. And sleep. And do past life regression exercises to summon the cloudy memory of my former existence. On the other hand, here are some things I've done recently that are interestingly rad:

-I swam tonight for an hour and a half, never stopping for more than 20 seconds. It's pretty safe to just say it was a straight swim, but that would technically be LYING, and explaining the intricate set itself would be BORING. So. How about this? Total distance = just about 2 miles (lost count!).
-I ran just under 17 miles on Sunday. It was brutal. I have never been in more acute physical pain in my life. Pride swells.
-I biked 85 miles two weekends ago. This also resulted in acute pain. And daydreams of pulling over and texting my coach "Eat a dick." Exercise makes me angry!

On this weekend's agenda:
-Saturday: bike from Anaheim to San Diego. The route is currently shrouded in mystery, but this will be between 85 and 110 miles. Cutesy +/-, Coach!
Some friends have invited me over for pizza and whiskey after and I....might not be conscious.
-Sunday: run 20 miles. Do YOU think its ludicrous that this is the post-ride activity? I do, and I signed up for this!

Two weekends ago, as I forced my knees to keep moving on my 13 mile run, I quietly thought to myself: We've entered Terra Incredula. This is as surprising to me as anyone else that I can and regularly do achieve these things - it's only the monotony of being robbed of what I have heretofore called My Life on a daily basis that makes it digestible and prosaic, makes it the sort of activity I insist over and over aloud to others that they could also do (they could).

Now, however, I've entered some more ridiculous place. These are the borderlands of comprehension, or at least the fringes of meaningfulness. On mile 16 on Sunday, as I ran past people doing WHATEVER with their Sunday - family picnics, yard sales, late lunches, neighborhood errands - the mental negotiation was a trading floor of activity. I told myself I could stop at the next water fountain. I got there, and passed it. I told myself I could stop at the NEXT water fountain. I did, and getting running again was more painful than the pain that led to stopping. T-rex baby steps and floppy arms leading to a granpa-hunched back took me a bit further - I told myself I could stop running at the end of the park. I got there and it just didn't make sense. I can't explain it. Why stop when it hurts that bad? Yes, what? What is that sentence? I don't know. Why stop when it hurts that bad. I can remember it making sense.
I ran for another 45 seconds, to a corner 4 minutes' walk from my house. I had told myself I could stop running there. And I did. Nothing has hurt more in my life, without exaggeration, than the next 2 minutes of walking. Then I had to cross the street, and all four lanes of traffic on Sunset Boulevard decided to stop for me - how could I not run? I ran the last 200 yards home - was dumbfounded to find the movements a relief after the walking, like my legs could only do the thing they had been doing for the last 3 hours and 10 minutes.

As I walked in my front door and to my room, my mouth made involuntary baby squeals, and I felt suddenly desperate to try and figure out what I could do to make my legs stop wailing at me. The only analog I have is when you have a simple problem - really simple, like maybe a battery door on a remote control that you can't get open - and you know there is something, not even a SECRET, but something stupid you are NOT doing that will make all the frustration end immediately. That sort of panic was how I felt about my legs. I went swimming, by which I mean I floated for 30 minutes.

Watching Shotgun Freeway last night, towards the end Joan Didion says (I can't imagine anyone saying this in any documentary about a city but one about LA, and I mean that in a lovely way) how the experience of meaninglessness is one of the most religious, and I found my brain drifting. What do I think of that? What is the meaning and meaninglessness of what I went through on Sunday? Clearly, beyond the event itself, I'm heartened to know what I've achieved. And this feeling is only possible by actually having lived through this bullshit. But at the time what did it mean? Sheer existential perseverence manufacturing it's own meaning step by step? Each step a log pulled out from under the back of the huge limestone block and quickly hustled up to become the front log? It's like quitting smoking - each day of not smoking becomes the next day's reason to not smoke. Also a thing that hardly and totally makes sense.

They tell me that after 17 miles its all the same. I'll leave my one eyebrow cocked until I've seen it for myself. Sunday.