Burnout

"It's better to burn out

Than to fade away"

-Neil Young, "My My, Hey Hey"

Something is wrong. When I say that, I mean that there is something wrong presently and superficially. I have DNFed my last three workouts with the team, and the last ten minutes of my "long" run last Sunday, ten miles of stumbling, felt as though I was swimming. Everything from biking to calss to getting up to take a leak in the middle of the night feels like a daunting effort. I'm trying to think of an explanation. It is not anemia, I know that. My ferritin count is 61, a number which Bethany says she would give her pinkie finger to have. It can't be mono, because I've already got that out of the way. My sleep has been good. I took three days very easy and that didn't help. I may be going flat, burning out. June 20th was the last time I took a day off. I am fatigued beyond belief. I just want to lie down right here. I want to hibernate.

I may have been starting to go flat the week before the time trial, but three days easy and adrenaline allowed me to gut it out. That may have given me a little shot in the arm that lasted to Interior Concretestan Invite. Kinetic Village probably took a lot out of me, too. Right now my quads are ravaged and I feel as though I am going to collapse just sitting here, watching my laundry dance in the dryer.

Maybe my problems run deeper. The superficial wrongness is simply a symptom of deeper wrongness. I may just have a case of bitch. I am still just a 9:50 guy or a ten flat guy even, who got lucky and now gets an opportunity to try another four or five years of pretending he has potential.

I didn't think I would still be running at this point. I was sure I would be done by the time trial. That was back in April when I was still a nine-fifty-crap two miler and a four-thirty-crap miler. That day at Edward's Stadium I ran through a solid iron door just as it was slamming shut. I considered myself so lucky, I had done the impossible. Now I realize that I had only begun to challenge the impossible. I realize that I may have ended up on the wrong side of that door.

That door is made of something heavy and metallic, but wherever I am is certainly not metal. I am not sure of the size or the scope of this chamber, or if it is any kind of enclosed space at all. It is a place where everything is moving quickly yet subtly and being still for a moment will get you crushed, smashed, mangled, maimed, exsanguinated, defenestrated, or just have the life force sucked out of you by some vaguely human but obviously alien proboscis. This is the place where we live now. There is no sky or floor, only a forest with strange machines filling up any empty or habitable spaces. Welcome to living the dream, asshole!

So since I am here now, what do I do? I am in a place where I have an opportunity. I may not be on the pleasant side of those hungry iron doors, but I am on the side where I can better myself. Most people are on the pleasant side where they can afford to make mistakes and afford to live a life with little routine, live a life without standing on the edge of physical reality and leaning forward. They can find little meaningless gems of meaning in the wee small hours of the morning. I know these people and love these people, but I cannot be one of them, at least while there is still work to do, while there is still an opportunity to better myself as best I can.

A week ago I had a dream. My dad was driving me to the time trial, and we were arguing about the same bullshit we always argue about. At some point, I challenged his masculinity. He pulls over and says "oh yeah, well look what I just bought!" as he reaches for the glove compartment.

He pulls out a Glock.

"How does just having a gun make you a man?" I ask. "Or are you trying to compensate for something?"

"It's not the fact that I have a gun," he says. "It's what I'm about to do with it." He puts it right up to the back of my head.

"You're too much of a bitch to pull the trigger," I say. "You're trying to prove yourself but you can't.  You're too much of a bitch."

Then he points the gun at my knee and fires ten rounds right above my patella. "Good luck with your running career now, asshole!"

But in the real world, I am still intact.