Friday Afternoon Confessional:

I confess to some anxiety about running in a half-marathon this weekend. The last time I tried one, I ended up in the hospital with severe dehydration and damage to my kidneys. With a proper night’s sleep, better preparation and appropriate dress, a repeat should be avoidable but there was a considerable length of time after my last attempt (before I was told what the hell was going on) where I thought I was going to die. That’s a tough memory to shake, even if it was exaggerated.

A little anxiety is added by the fact that I’ll be running with my brother, who is legally blind but has decent “straight-forward” vision. He’s run far more than I have, including a full marathon on the same day of my half-marathon failure, so I’m sure he’ll be fine. But the race starts at 7 am and it’s supposed to be overcast and his vision is worst in poor lighting, so there could be times where it’s dicey. I’m hoping my plan of just getting in front of him and letting him follow me when lighting sucks or when it’s too crowded is sufficient to allow him to avoid injury or incident. To be clear, though, I’m very happy to have somebody to run with this time.

I confess to being mystified by the fact that on the same day I’m running my race, people will be running a full marathon. I’m pretty sure the thought that comes to mind when I cross the finish line will not be “I bet I could do that again.”

I confess to thinking the whole “today is the anniversary of [x event]” is overdone.