MARATHON DREAMING

The marathon is, apparently, deep within my psyche. Last week I had 2 Marathon dreams, both about New York, on consecutive nights:

Dream 1: I ran a really great time...3:10! I employed a unique strategy. After running the first half in 1:45 I went home and took a nap. Since the race was scored by running chip time, I knew that my rest wouldn't work against me. However, I didn't want to delay too long because Shelly, my running coach would be disappointed if I reached the finish 7 hours after the race began. So I went back to the mid way point and ran the rest of the way in an extremely fast time, 1:25, giving me my overall time of 3:10. This was my fastest Marathon BY FAR. I was very proud.

I wrote to Coach Bob's Diary (this is true, not part of the dream) to describe my dream and suggest (humorously, of course!) that this strategy of resting between marathon halves could be used by others. Bob failed to appreciate the humor and responded seriously that time would accumulate while resting. Disappointed, it would seem, by Bob's failure to enjoy the joke, this is what I dreamed next:

Dream 2: I completed the second half of the NY Marathon FIRST and then went to the starting line to run the initial section. I struggled to find the way, however, and it took quite a while till I arrived at the start. Finally I did, but I did not run well. My overall time was disappointing.

In this dream, Bob was right. The clock kept going all the while I was between the second half of the course and the first.

Interpretation: The marathon is on my mind. I think it shows that the disappointment I felt at being ill, missing the Disney Marathon and not running for almost 3 weeks is still with me and that it is very strong. I handled this period as well as I could. I did all I could to get well, took time off from work, amused myself in various ways (including blog writing), accepted that I would miss the race pretty well, didn't try to be heroic and didn't overly obsess about it. Still...WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!! My psyche, apparently, is still working through it. The oddness of my dream races, I think, reflect how strange it is for me to miss such a big event and to be sidelined for so long. The first dream is an attempt to make this ordeal into something good...I run, by far, my best time. But it's a fragile attempt and Bob's reality comment apparently undercuts the attempt and leads to the disappointment in the second dream.

Oh, well!!