On Entering the Dreaded Holding Pattern

Racing.
It's why we run, right? The carrot at the end of the stick? The big goal race at the end of a hard training cycle?

Well...  yes and no.
It certainly seems that way sometimes, like when getting up at 5 am to run doubles, or squeezing in a 12 mile weekday workout during "lunch", or when shelling out big bucks for entry fees, airfare, and hotel rooms. It's all for that one day at the end of the training cycle, the big payoff of one perfectly executed race and a new PR.

But what happens when you don't have that big race coming up? Or when you have that big race coming up but you know you won't be ready? Or when you want to have a big race to shoot for but can't realistically say when that will be possible?

I've been pondering these questions recently because I'm finding myself in an unfortunately familiar spot, where it looks increasingly like I'm going to have to bail on my next big goal race (Boston).

After illness derailed my fall Plan A (CIM) and injury derailed my fall Plan B (Holiday Half), I was looking forward to having a little downtime to get healthy and back on track for my spring Plan A. In fact, it never even occurred to me that it was a Plan A. It was just The Plan.

But it's not really happening. Yes, I am back running everyday and yes, my injury is almost gone, but it has taken way longer to get here than I'd hoped. I'm running almost 60 miles a week now, but I feel like I'm running 90 miles a week. And not in a good, look-at-how-fit-I'm-getting, kind of a way, but in a holy-cow-I'm-tired-and-I-feel-awful kind of a way. I feel like I'm about a hundred years away from doing a real workout. I've been through this before, and I know that when the time comes, things can turn around right quick. But the arrival of that time is hard to predict and apparently it's not here yet.

So, as Boston email confirmations show up in my inbox, I get philosophical.

What if I just went anyway, even if I'm not in my best shape? I mean, I'll be able to finish, right? And sure, usually the point of racing is to run as fast as possible, but isn't it sometimes enough just to show up and do what you can? What about going and enjoying the experience?
Or, what if I ran a late spring marathon instead? It's not my usual thing to show up at a small town marathon and hope to run well, but couldn't this be a chance to broaden my horizons and run some new (to me) races?
Or, what if I enter a holding pattern at my current level and (gasp) don't plan anything at all until I'm actually healthy? The thing I miss most is enjoying the run, so shouldn't I get back to that first and foremost and let everything else fall where it may?

Anyway.
I can philosophize about these things while the miles tick by on my ridiculously slow "long" runs, as if I have some big choice to make, but the reality is that my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that we will be entering a holding pattern right about now. Until I can run some semblance of a workout or even enjoy an easy run, it would be phenomenally stupid to try to force myself to train like a healthy marathoner.

You never know, maybe that magical turning point will arrive this week or next, and then I will have a real decision to make, but for now I'll just keep on keeping on, and try not to do anything stupid. And ok, maybe I'll make some plans about making future plans...  just to pass the miles, of course.