Heartbreak Run

Week of February 19, 2012:

Monday: Recovery yoga

Tuesday: Short run

Wednesday: Bike commute

Thursday: Short run

Friday: Very slow and slightly chilly walk with Matt

Saturday: Another slow walk with Matt and furniture construction!

Week of February 26, 2012:

Sunday: Long, awful run

There’s no easy way to put this: I’m nursing a broken heart today.  Most of the time, I think a statement like that would be followed with a declaration like, “We broke up.”  But that’s not true—the situation is far more complicated than that, and I have far too much hope that things will work out.  Still, Matt and I are operating under different expectations these days, different from our past, and it was really hard to see him in pain and not be able to offer him comfort.  It was hard to see him not turning to me for comfort.  So often he has offered me comfort during hard times, and we’ve grown closer as a result.  Not being able to make him feel better makes me feel like a failure.  It makes me feel like our relationship has failed too, which is really scary.  We’ve always been able to work things out!  But we’ve never faced anything like this.

I don’t want to say too much, in part out of respect for Matt’s privacy and in part because this isn’t a tidy little story with an obvious problem that could be analyzed to reveal an obvious solution.  Suffice to say that when I set out on my long run today, I was feeling pretty drained, emotionally.  I was hoping my run would make me feel better.  But at my first stopping point, a street-crossing on Texas Ave., I felt really dizzy and nauseous, so I sat down.  I must have then laid down and passed out, because the next thing I remember was a lovely young woman waking me up and asking me if I was okay.  She offered water and a ride home, but I declined.  Then another woman in a car came by and asked if I was diabetic, to which I said, “No.”  She was suspicious as I tried to say I was okay (I wasn’t, but eh—it was worse than low blood sugar).  I kept saying, “No, thank you” to all their offers of help, and I crossed the street and sat down on a stone structure.  I still felt dizzy and kind of sick, but I hoped the feeling would pass.  I stood up and walked for a bit, then I resumed my run.

It was a seriously awful run.  I was fighting tears on and off, I took more walk breaks than I can count, and I was slow as molasses on my feet.  I thought about turning around many times, but I kept moving forward, perhaps hoping to find some solace in the comfort of my run.  Somehow I managed to run for 92 minutes (at a very, very slow pace), and I came home and cried some more.  I drank some water and went outside for a little walking cooldown, then I came back and ate a banana, which made me feel marginally better.  But goddammit, it was the worst run of my life.

I feel a little better now, after a shower and lunch and some therapeutic writing.  I’m so sad about Matt and our predicament that I can’t worry about how the half-marathon is next weekend and I just ran the worst long run ever.  He and I are, as the saying goes, giving each other some space, which I think will be good for both of us.  I hope love prevails in the long run.