I'm Not Normal

I found myself wondering on my run last night, "Do normal people think about this kinda stuff when they run? Do normal people think "I wonder what it's like to be friends with Prince?" when they hear one of his songs on their iPod (that's right, folks, "Purple Rain" AND "Kiss". BOTH on my iPod!)? Or as they choose between the sidewalk or the blacktop, do all normal people think to themselves, "How much harder is concrete than asphalt? And who would actually measure that, anyway?" How often do normal people think "I wonder if surgeons have nightmares about not having their muscles yet in the morning, and they're operating and can't get the scalpel to break the skin? I hope I never have to have surgery in the morning."

It would be great to be normal. Then I could just think about things like, "Cool, my toe doesn't hurt as much as I thought it was going to." or "Will my Garmin sound an alarm after every mile, or quarter mile?" But then I would get into things like "Why in the hell did I buy a frikken Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS-Enabled Sports Watch? I am the most electronically illiterate person on the planet. What makes me think I will ever figure out how in the heck to work this thing?" (Hey wait, is that a squirrel?)

Do normal people actually wait for the light to turn green before they continue across the street when they are running? Do they wonder if other people do?

But then I start to think about what I am doing. Do normal people run 10 times a week? Do they get such pleasure out of it that they feel the need to write about it? Do normal people plan their packing for a trip around "Do I need to take a bigger suitcase so I can take my running shoes?" Is the first thing they think about when they get up in the morning "I can't wait to get to the point in my schedule where I run my first 90-mile week. I can't wait."

I'm running my 4th marathon in December. I'm trying to qualify for Boston. Normal people do not run 26.2 miles. Normal people do not dream of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I am not normal. Eff normal.