I ran 140 miles in the month of August. I’ll run more than that in September. It doesn’t seem odd to me anymore, though, it probably should. If I had to guess, I’d say I ran about ten miles total from the ages of 22 to 34.

I’m marathon training. And I’m tired. All the time. I’ve been too tired to write for a couple of months now but it’s time to change that.

I’m following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 1 training program. If you google “marathon training program,” you’ll find Hal Higdon. I used his half marathon training program and that worked out pretty well.

The program consists of 5 weekly runs, one cross training day, and one rest day. During the week, you might run 3 miles, then 5 miles, then 3 miles, then rest. Then you’ll run 5 miles and then you’ll do your long run, which is about 8 or 9.

That’s the beginning.

Last week it was 4 miles, 8 miles, 4 miles, 8 miles and 18 miles.

18 miles, without stopping (except for water).

Here’s some more perspective for you. Three years ago, in October, I wrote a Facebook post where I marveled at the fact that I ran 16 miles in one week. (I will again point you to the grand total of 10 from 22-34.)

I am now in a phase of training where every long run is the longest I have ever run in my life. 18 is now my record. I’ll break it in two weeks when I run 20, and I’ll break it again when I run the marathon (I hope).

I decided to run the marathon after running the Brooklyn Half Marathon in 2018. I felt like a beast having completed a half. 13.1 miles! I ran for an hour and forty-five minutes!

Cut to a Sunday in August 2019 when my long run was 14 miles on a humid day. I felt like a 90 year old who’s smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes his entire life running uphill in wet sand.

It was hot and humid, sure, but 14 miles isn’t even half what I need to run in November.

A little more perspective: it is only 0.9 miles longer than the half marathon that convinced me to run a full marathon.

It’s hard to do it multiple days in a row for longer distances than I’m used to. I guess it’s supposed to be that way and you’re supposed to push yourself in training.

But I’m not doing it because I want to I’m doing it because the program says so. I used to love getting up in the mornings to run before work. Half of the fun was just getting up to do it. I’m not a morning person at all but after a few minutes of running, I’d be so glad I did it. It was invigorating.

Now I run at night because I’m too damn tired to get out of bed in the morning.

I guess this is part of it? You’re supposed to get your body used to fatigue so that it knows when to burn glycogen and when to burn fat for energy the longer you run.

Fatigue has crept in to other parts of my life. Lately I’ve just been getting to the weekend because I pack my week with so much stuff.*

* There was a New York Times article a few years back that pointed out how people who said that they were busy were kind of humble bragging. They were, in fact, choosing to be busy and using it as badge of honor. I don’t know what the article was and I don’t feel like googling it and linking to it. But I get it – talking about how busy and how tired I am is a privilege. I don’t have a family to support or a thankless, back-breaking job. This is all my doing. But still, I’m tired.

A month and a half or so ago, my boss came to me and told me that I should take some vacation. Everyone else in my group had, so, I should fit one in before the end of the year.

I decided to take a staycation. I’d use the four days after Labor Day. (I love that trick – getting a whole week off of work with only four days because of a National holiday.) I would relax. I would do nothing. I’d sleep late. I’d watch TV. I’d read. I’d watch movies. I even decided to take a break from shows! When’s the last time I did that? I’ve been doing improv shows weekly for about a decade and storytelling shows on top of that for the past five years or so.

It backfired. Whenever I have a week, I always think I’m going to read 8 books but I’m still not done with the damn Goldfinch. I watch re-runs and contemplate what I should do to with the rest of my day. If I’m not busy, I wonder what I should be doing to justify not being busy.

And therein lies the paradox. Doing things makes me wish I could just relax and do nothing. Doing nothing makes me want to do get off my ass and do things.*

* I did do one cool thing. I went to see my friend Tim in DC and we caught a baseball game, Mets vs. Nationals. It was awesome seeing my friend, his wife, his daughter, and his new house. DC’s close! Why don’t I just pop down there more?! Because actually it’s four hours away on Amtrak. Not bad but not easy. And the Mets closer Edwin Diaz blew a save in a fashion I didn’t think possible. We went in to the bottom of the 9th winning 10-4. We lost 11-10.

On the last Saturday of my staycation, I was in Washington Square Park. I was sitting on a bench while a jazz band played ten feet away. Fall weather, in a park, with jazz playing, it was the kind of day I wish for all summer, every summer.* But I wasn’t enjoying it. I was thinking of what to do next, how to get home, what to get for dinner, and what else I could do to truly enjoy my time off.

* Yes, that is in fact my dream day. I know for many, the New York ideal will always be the Bowery with CBGB’s and cheap rents and artists running amok. My ideal New York is falling leaves and jazz music. It’s straight outta When Harry Met Sally and the Mr. Fall Man article from The Onion which, for me, is not satire. That image got to me first. I can’t justify it, so, I won’t.

I have a nervous mind. I need to do stuff. I need to do things that make me think, “God, I’d like to just drop everything and relax,” but then I need to not do that because it’s not that great. Not for seven days anyway.

It’s kind of like at the end of a really long run. I reach a place where all I want to do is stop. But I know that I can’t. I have to keep my legs moving until the finish line. And all the time I’m thinking, “Am I at 18 yet? When can I stop? Jesus, when can I just stop?”

And then I crossed the finish line and thought, “Huh, it feels kind of weird not to be running.”