Turn, turn, turn

PMB...Post Marathon Blues. 

I'm sure it's a pretty common affliction, and for sure it's not limited to the marathon. It's caused by a training and racing season full of the very real psyco and phsio combinations that naturally occur due to the physical, mental and emotional elixir running delivers to the body, mind and soul. Whether the concoction is mixed for 5k speed or marathon endurance, it's an addictive potion that's hard to replace once the season is done. 

You can't stay "in season" too long either. You need the dry spells, the recovery gaps that clean out the system and let the anguish of hill workouts, intervals and multiple-hour runs drain from your muscle memory, one easy run day after another. This slow leakage of the seasons workouts drips with scar tissue, mad sprints and long drives to the finish line. Natural blood doping at it's finest.

It's not by chance our running seasons coincide with those provided by Mother Nature. Spring is rebirth, fresh legs and the craving for speed, speed, speed! We break out of the winter months with hope and anxiety for that magical season that has us circling the track with a gravitational pull that rivals Earth's own spin around the sun.

Summer has us beating feet down the streets like the road crew from 'Cool Hand Luke'. We sweat to cleanse ourselves and lose not only weight but the shackles of the daily routines of life in favor of a group run or solo effort in the heat of July. It's base building season and we look past the mirage on the roads ahead and trust ourselves to deliver a fall running-season-reality that is more fitness than fantasy. We put in the time to deliver us from the evil that goes by the name of 'Undertrained'.

And then we are back to the future, another fall season behind for most of us, yet some of the lucky ones are in or approaching Championship Season. It's for the young and the restless, but Championship Season is the part of our running culture that brings headlines to the sport. Even for us mid pack runners we need to know the sport is expanding, living and breathing with talented, hard working runners that will continue to push the envelop that has world class athletes training for and accomplishing some amazing things.

If we allow ourselves to keep the seasonal tradition alive and hold to the cycles of Mother Nature and human nature, odds stay in our favor for a lifetime of great running, one season at a time. It's hard to be patient, to hold back and peak for just a season at a time when you feel like you can race all year. You can run all year, be thankful for that, and remind yourself that winter, in whatever level it cools your region, comes for a reason. It replenishes the world, just like it will your running. 

Embrace winter, Mother Nature knows best.

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