I'm Running 2 Marathons, Without a Shadow of Gout

Gout.

It has to be gout.  I have never had it officially diagnosed, but I know what it is.  Maybe I’m embarrassed to hear the official diagnosis.  Maybe I’m pissed that I have something commonly known as “rich man’s disease” without actually being rich.  Or maybe it’s just my penchant for not wanting to go to the doctor.  But the pain in my left big toe is familiar to me – I’ve had this before.

About six years ago I had a friend from out of town come to visit me.  We were walking around Boston and I began to feel an annoying pain in my toe.  Sitting down at a local bar for lunch amidst a group, the pain became excruciating.  It was so bad, that I had to excuse myself an go home.  I didn’t know what it was, but coincidentally I had just purchased new shoes, and so I blamed it on them and thought nothing more of it.

A year later, the pain returned.  This time it was unexplained, and I started googling things and came up with a self-diagnosis of “gout.”  It’s a build-up of uric acid in the blood stream that crystalizes and causes excruciating pain in joints – usually the big toe.  The word “excruciating” is certainly appropriate.  At night, even if the sheet rests on my foot the wrong way, the toe screams out in pain.  Sitting at my work desk with the distraction of a busy day, the pain is still omnipresent and will cause me at times to burst out in a random sweat.  And running?  Forget about it.  I am lucky I can make it from my car to my desk in the morning.

A Case of the Ordinary Mondays

I know it's Wednesday, but I started this article on a Monday and I'm just getting around to finishing it.  Actually, I started it last Monday... but who is counting?

In my mind, I have a vision of how the typical Monday should go.   I wake up a little on the earlier side and take my time getting ready for work – shower, get dressed, and head out.  I grab my large Dunkin’ iced coffee and nestle into my desk chair to begin the work week.  It shouldn’t be too hard.  Every weekend is a chance to reset; every Monday a chance to start anew.

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

I stood among people I had never met before.  Many of them held bottles of water, quite a few of them had band-aids protecting their nipples, and many had their genitals lathered with some type of moisturizing cream.  The music was pumping loud through large speakers, and the overall mood was upbeat and jovial.  No, I wasn’t at a midnight rave in an abandoned industrial warehouse.  I was at the start of the Cheshire Half Marathon.

Last year I stood in this exact same spot, completely clueless as to what the next two and a half hours held in store for me.  It was my first ever half marathon, and I finished in a rather slow 2:27:18, a pace of 11:13 per mile.  I didn’t know at the time it was going to be the beginning of a new obsession.  Lining up at this year’s race was much different – I now had two more half-marathons and two full marathons under my belt.  This is beginning to feel a bit old-hat.

It was an interesting drive to Cheshire, one much different than last year’s.  Last year I spent the hour in the car listening to Rage Against the Machine, talking myself into believing that I could somehow run 13.1 miles.  Now I’m a veteran and there are no such thoughts, and I save the Rage for the end of my running playlist – for when I really need motivation.