Runners have strange pre-race nightmares. We wake fitfully to
quadruple check that we packed our shoes. We toss and turn over thoughts of
body-chafing in unmentionable areas. We avoid fiber for weeks to quell the
fever-inducing thought of race-day incontinence. We spend our taper weeks of
relaxation wound tighter than the Gordian Knot imagining the million ways our
race goals could become unraveled. It is the stuff of great psychological
thrillers.
So what if? What if all those nightmares came to fruition on race
day? What do you do? How do you respond to your running world collapsing around
you? These are questions every runner must answer at some point, because I
guarantee you will have a race where “the wheels fall off.”
