Chicago 2015

Last year there were these quantifiable things - this fresh injury, the cafe corditos cubanos, I was cut hours for being less vibrant and got shingles like a series of spiderbites in a hug on my shoulder; I was trying to date, but really not wanting to and kind of just flitting about half-involved in everything, yet with a goal as haunting as Time. And even though nothing came easy, and I wasn't living up to Balance, I ran out of heartbreak and felt powerful. On the other end of it, I found balance better than I had in my life - a balanced partner, balance in work and play, in running and recovering, in eating, in relationships with people who give as much as take, if not moreso mostly the former. And in my development of balance, the haunt grew, the desire, the work ethic, all of it thick and unforgiving, but, I became more fragile, a part of me less capable, or execution became as such. It's a feeling of disconnectedness at a time in my life I feel most connected, and it's confusing. The quantifiable was that everything had to go wrong to go right, and this made sense to me.

My experience at Chicago 2015 milks me. I can see blacking out this whole experience, so I'll write to take responsibility for the work, the emotions, and the outcome. When I think about it, the whole thing - my pubic bone, the experience, how close I can get to revealing how I feel - I think of "wall." Not the traditional "wall up" wall. But a wall is a wall in a wall as it works. When I ran, it felt like my pube was bumping up against one. When I stood beneath the blue sun, waiting for Nikki post race, seeing her with wet eyes in the shapes of a question, I felt as composed as a wall, able to think clearly, wanting to dissect her emotions rather than my own. I was sturdy; quick to laugh & pass the brew & Giordanos beneath the graffiti-walls of a city rolled deep in dough. A wall, because if I really inhabit how I feel, if I take down the bricks of it, closer in, I feel, quite miserable, and ashamed of feeling so. This time, what I could control went right, the training and workouts; my fitness was tangible; I figured I could rewrite the equation - Everything can go right to go right - but then, a lesson - you can try to train something fragile to handle stress, but you sacrifice control over what day it'll be taught.

Think Curtain, Shared, Portable, Temporary. Those feel less like Forever. Think, Defense. Think Interior. Think Decoration, Preservation. Think Frost's "Mending Wall," as man "makes boundaries and he breaks boundaries," or maybe, "Spring is the mischief in me..." or Floyd's concept album The Wall in exploration of abandonment & personal isolation. This sounds really dramatic. But it's personal. And the closest I can get to the feeling.

All this aside, this is what is real: I made toasted sandwiches and sliced fruit for the airport. Packed canned wine in the glove compartment for post celebration libations. Brought Rad Bones' blue ball, David Foster Wallace, and all race materials in a single pack. Got myself a triple shot amazing hot vanilla latte and drove to a thrift store down South to look at costumes. Picked up Red at the wine warehouse and had a dark-lit vampy lunch with his parents in send off. Rolled myself rotten on the airport carpet, checked into our hotel in Schilling, slept well.

Expo: better than last year in it's brevity. In time on my feet. Conversation easily excitable with Nikki, though not at our best health-wise, we were so ready, buzzing in a glittery cloud of potential. Napping in our cute minimalist hostel room at the Freehand downtown, with its jade green tiles, navajo fabrics, corner views. Lavender spread on the bedside table. Watching baseball with a sudden intake of air as Tejada broke his leg. Met up with Nikki & Josh at whole foods for the bar of vats of carbs, eating all the fast things: potatoes, pasta, kale, chia seeds, beets before back in bed, excited. Waking in the black with Red on a latte run & two secret treats which would later be known as the biggest, pink, sprinkle-glazed and maple-bacon topped, cream-cheese filled donuts of all, hiding in a brown bag of a grease blanket. Headed to ADP; still in these moments, I felt ready. Tacked onto the shockingly small frames of the Hall's in their warm-up. Then, on the line all of us with the same goal found each other & told one another of strategy & metronome & where-you-from by-the-way? Anthem sung. Gun blew. And for the first half I felt ready - until I didn't, and slowed every 5k. Re-assessed the race plan & fell to another goal in the tier, Thought, I talked about this, I could quit if I know I don't have it. It doesn't mean that I am a quitter. By simply finishing, and having to heal from it, just to believe I'm not a quitter is not enough. I need to bounce back, please. But I couldn't. I couldn't do it. None of us who had collected at the start accomplished the goal. 7 women ran an OTQ, and of the 7, 4 had already made it. A small scale in contrast to last year's 21.

Red was the best part, haulin' from train to train, catching me at several spots, putting in requests to trumpet players. High-fiving crowd members. Self-prescribed Sherpa. Giver of coffee and donuts. Sacrificing the sights of Chicago for holed-up dwell. Went dry with me. Is proud of me. Carried everything. And all, quite happily, much laughter, bright-eyed and dead-straight-in-the-eye-of-belief that I could do it. Insisting, insisting, Remember how many times you left our front door? Remember all that you've done?

My body is healing rapidly. I'm ignoring my crotch. I've got 4 choices and all the hand-plucked apples from mother's trees, all the apple pies and apple butters and applesauce. I'm upset, and thrifting helps. I'm thinking I'll either be cheese or monica lewinsky for all hallows eve. Watching Boogie Nights for the first time in my life - way behind - and now I'm having wild dreams about Mark Wahlberg and then all this blood down a stairwell? Not sure what this means. We're having a wine tasting next week for all the buyers and all our buds, so life goes forward, further from the thing that feels like a wall.