![]() ![]() ![]() I’d dealt with only one major injury-a fractured femur-and failed to finish a marathon just once in my entire career. It was about maintaining relentless forward progress, and I had done that. My concept of endurance included more than lean muscle mass, high cardiovascular capacity, mental toughness, and a finishing kick. ![]() ![]() Desiree Linden: Exactly Where She Plans to Be.Desiree Linden Wins the Boston Marathon.At least I’m feeling something.Īs I fought sleep, knowing I would lose, I made a decision. There was room for only one train of thought in my head. I didn’t review the tailspin that had led to this night, how I had spiraled in a matter of months from one of the fittest people in the world to someone who struggled to climb a flight of stairs, my senses dulled, barely functioning. Finally, I detected it, shallow and faint, alarmingly slow. Had I woken up because I’d stopped breathing? I held completely still and listened for the reverb in my chest. There was no fragment of a nightmare floating in my mind, no pounding heart.įear surged through me. I lay on my back and tried to process why I was awake when I had done nothing but sleep for weeks. It was the summer of 2017, a couple months after the Boston Marathon. The wind off Lake Michigan was absent, for once, and I didn’t hear the usual rhythm of waves lapping at our shoreline. I woke myself with a gasp: one big, sharp inhale. ![]()
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