Are you still carrying that woman? I put her down back there by the river.

A friend/ acquaintance/colleague/whatever just wrote to me:

I hope your trip to India was amazing. I'm still not sure how you traveled around the world and then came back to run a marathon. You are my hero.

I replied as follows, and was immediately struck by the truth of my response:

Regarding India and then marathon: It seems that I frequently do things at which I look back and think, how did I do that? I guess it's better than looking forward at things and thinking I can't, but it is a weird phenomenon. It's only a week after my FOURTH marathon, this YEAR, and I've already moved into the "marathon? I can't run a marathon!" stage.

Why do I do that? How does that happen? I think I do the opposite of resting on my laurels; I wear them like a crown of thorns...



Botanically mixed metaphors, anyone?