A Little Beet Insane

I am not exactly the health food store type of guy. It’s not that I am not into being healthy. I am very careful with what I eat, and as for exercise, I take that pretty seriously as well. It’s just that to me, health food stores are kind of weird, foreign and a bit crunchy, sort of like San Francisco. So what was I doing in a health food store the other day?

I sometimes wonder whether the articles in running magazines are big jokes at my expense. I can just picture the writers talking and saying, “Do you think we can get him to eat cauliflower?” “No, no, no, replies his friend, “let’s write an article about how wearing shorts inside out will make a runner faster”. OK, they probably aren’t doing that, but I am crazy enough to try any advice I read on running. So there I was in a health food store asking for beet root juice. Someone had written how drinking a liter of beet root juice each day during the week before a race was proven to improve performance and so I had to give it a shot.

In three days I make my next last chance at qualifying for Boston. Someone pointed out to me yesterday that this obsession seems to be based on qualifying, more than it does on Boston, and I can’t really argue. I have run more miles than ever for this race, had one of my toe nails turn (permanently?) black and even entered a health food store. It feels a little insane. Yet somehow, I feel this almost existential need to do this. To qualify, to somehow feel worthy, to make into the club.

I suspect some of you, even those who run, can’t relate to this. For those who do, I make a toast and say thanks for the encouragement, as I drink some beet root juice.