An act of defiance.
This isn’t actually what I want. The thought shone like the moon in front of me, taunting me with its brightness after a fraught journey mincing my way down 2/3 of That Grim’s Ditch, guided by nothing more than the torch on my phone and the raging fire in my guts. The thought came, firm and certain, at That Junction. That Place Where My Wheels Keep Falling Off. But this time the wheels had gone 27 miles earlier at Wendover from a blown IT band. It was there I’d already known it was game over. For hours I knew. Maybe even weeks. Because maybe it was over when I fell for the third time in as many months on my already trashed left shoulder, making me tweak my training to avoid swinging the arm too much? Or it could have been over when the race cut an hour off the closing time of the first checkpoint a month out – that hour which was to be my cushion to avoid typical mid race anxiety. That loss giving me only a month to work in a pace increase from 16 minute miles to...