Tonight is the Eugene kickoff celebration for Team In Training. This means that I will meet the other folks here who are training for the Mayor’s Midnight Sun marathon, and I will meet my coach… but most importantly it means that now I’m pretty sure I have to start actually running. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, since the specter of running has been hanging over my head for several weeks now, I’m relieved to just get started already. After all, maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear. On the other hand, there’s the fear. Have I mentioned that I don’t like running?

I am fairly confident that this training will involve a number of unpleasant things, things such as getting up really early, getting up really early on Saturdays, feeling sore, being out of breath a lot, feeling nauseous, being overbooked, and being exhausted. The secret of course is that not so deep down I like all of these things. Except being nauseous. There’s absolutely nothing redeeming I can think of about nausea. But nausea aside, all the other stuff feels good almost immediately after the initial unpleasantness. And I know that. So why does this whole thing have such a looming quality?