Post Marathon Depression

If I had run the marathon on Sunday I would probably be feeling down, like many of my running friends right about now.  It happens to virtually even marathoner especially if you have a goal beyond simply finishing the race.  You spend 16-18 weeks training and sacrificing for your sport and you get once chance come race day.  If it's not your day, it's a long time before the next do-over.

Surprisingly, I'm not sad that I didn't run on Sunday.  Any wistful longing for being part of a ritual I followed for more than a decade was eased when I watch several runners struggling just to make it to the finish line, their hopes of a PR or BQ dashed.  Any thoughts I had of still doing the full marathon in Detroit on the 21st are quickly dismissed thanks to my rickety knees.

I will admit I do wish I were one of the many friends who was able to post a new PR on Facebook or have their friends congratulation them in the comments.  I'm a little jealous of all the buzz that seems to be languished upon my friends who have recently discovered running and marathoning. 

In the days before FB, I would send out a post-marathon story to my friends in an email blast, and then later a link to post on one of my old blogs. Running marathons was one of the few successes I had in life and I wanted to share.

Most of my friends humored me or used it as an excuse to check in on how I was doing otherwise and share any news of their life.  Of course I had friends like Fitz who made me feel bad about my running hobby.

A couple months ago, someone posted this link to the Onion article on my Facebook wall. It stung because its true.

When someone asks how are you, most of the time its just to give themselves a second to catch their breath before they tell you how they are doing. 

Many of my friends got married 10 minutes after college graduation and started families. Every year I'd get the photocopies holiday newsletter which sounded pretty much like last year's newsletter. Soccer games, scouts. family vacations. I assumed that if I read through their newsletters someday they'd return the favor. Nope, I can't tell you how many emails I'd get from some friend saying oh I haven't read your newsletter yet.

I guess its hard to find time between children were "sleeping dry" at age three months and that Larry and Barbara got 18 miles to the gallon out of their camper on the way to Former Landfill Lake. I found these photocopied diaries impersonal and boring, and if their poodle was depressed following her hysterectomy, I really didn't care but at least I made the effort to acknowledge it