I should have known better. It’s against my better judgment to train with the dog. As a puppy maybe. Or when I wasn’t in training. Perhaps that was what was working in the back of my mind when I set up this 19-week Boston Marathon training regimen, that sure enough I’d do something stupid, hard-run with Thurb in the cold, pouring rain without limbering up, tense in my body over the first quarter-mile, because during that part of the run all pretense of me being in charge of Thurber is cast off, as he howls and howls and charges off like a wild horse, me holding on to the leash for dear life, and on this day (Dec. 7), as I’m yanked along, big heavy strides, about a dozen of them, before I feel something like needles digging just below the surface, upper outside thigh of my left leg, where the hamstring attaches, first thinking what the hell else do I have in my pocket besides the Snoop Loop halter and retractable nylon leash, what could be causing this sharp pain, but then I think shit, it’s a muscle tear, hard to know just how serious, but something not good, and I’m thinking that if I stop now in the cold and wet and walk home it will only seize up and get worse, if only I’d warmed up before this wouldn’t be happening now, I’m only in a T-shirt and baggy shorts, freezing, the rain really coming down, and damn, Thurb isn’t easing up one bit, this might not be such a good idea, trying to slow him down so that the pain is just a dull throb, eventually though he does as he always does, levels off into a trot, stops the incessant howling so that I too can relax, feel looser, which helps, and, yeah, keep going, convincing myself that if I get home in time before I have to gather up my stuff and head off to the newsroom that I’ll find the heating pad and apply some HIGH heat before my sedentary day gets in full swing, and worst case, ties up the muscle so badly that I’ll be taking a week of rest days, heat and cold and light stretching before I’ll be able to get back to training for the marathon; maybe I’ll be looking at a 100-day marathon training regimen after all.
