I stumbled on this scene yesterday along Crissy Field in the midst of a slow afternoon run.

The run was my first in nearly 3 weeks. For the past 40 minutes, I had been shuffling along distractedly, constantly evaluating my body’s feedback. Can I pull off this race in 10 days or not? Has this sneaky virus robbed me of the training I dutifully banked in recent months? Or did I have enough in my account to avoid being overdrawn on race day? If the latter, I could probably still grind through the day. It would just be more painful than I had originally bargained for, most likely. But I hadn’t felt that sort of “make you want to quit after the next step” pain in over 10 years.

That’s a long time. Perhaps too long. I once knew exactly when to expect the pain, or at least recognized the…