If, you know, by “disco” you mean “mile 3 out of 4.”  AND FINE, ALSO MILE 2 OF 4.  God, you guys are relentless.

Okay, so I’m learning.  There are good running days and there are bad running days.  So far, I haven’t been able to identify any connecting factor, any string that I can use to trace the reasons behind the bad days.  What I do know is that the bad days can easily lead to the massive, hyperventilating, have-to-sit-down-in-stranger’s-front-yards panic attacks that I have about once every 2 weeks while running.  If I could identify what’s making these days “bad days,” you better believe that I’d change it in a heartbeat.

Today at mile 2 I started to feel myself go into the cycle that quickly digresses into a panic attack.  I started walking for a second so I could catch my breath.  Zack, who is becoming quite adept at identifying the early signs of me Losing My Shit, immediately started in with “YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE*.  YOU ARE DOING AWESOME, THINK ABOUT HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME!” (*I do think I’ve narrowed down that breathlessness seems to be one of my triggers.  Breathlessness and failure.  Can you see why running maybe triggers these panic attacks?  I’m a failure cause I’m so out of shape to begin with.  So I run.  Which, in turns leads, to the breathlessness which leads to the failure and HELLO DOWNWARD SPIRAL, I HAVEN’T SPENT THIS MUCH TIME WITH YOU SINCE THERAPY.)  I caught my breath pretty quickly, focused on what Zack was saying, put the earbud back in my ear and started running again.  We’ll call that a 50% panic attack.  A 0.5 if you will.

Then, a mile later there was a hill.  A big, long, gnarly hill and I don’t usually run hills and wah, wah, wah, and I have no idea why some days I enjoy running and it’s (dare I say it?) kind of fun, and others OH MY GOD, TEH SUCK.  I made it to the top of the hill, but not before I felt the tingle of adrenaline shoot up and down my spine.  I started chanting to myself as I ran.  You are not a failure.  You are fine.  You can breathe.  You are breathing just fine and it’s okay.  You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.  I tried desperately to talk myself out of it, but I couldn’t.  One sharp inhale at the top of the hill sent me in to full-blown hyperventilation, spotted vision, tears coming out of my eyes.  Zack was there again, as always, Johnny-on-the-Spot-Support-System, encouraging me to keep walking, just keep moving, it’s going to be okay, you’re doing great!  And I was all, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  HAVING A PANIC ATTACK. HAVE TO SIT DOWN, as I plopped down in a stranger’s front yard.  While fanning myself, trying to calm down and slow my breathing, I kept answering Zack as he talked to me.  “It’s okay, babe,” he said, “you’re doing fine.”  I gracefully replied, “FINE? FINE?! AM FREAKING OUT. FAILURE.”  And he said, no, no.  You’re fine.  And you’re doing a really good job.  And I said, A REALLY GOOD JOB OF SUCKING IT UP. And he was like, just keep breathing, you’re going to be fine.  And I started to say, “I have done this before! Why does it hurt so bad today!?” But I was cut off abruptly as Zack yelled, “JUST REALLY TIRED.”

And I was all, Qua?  Did Zack just get so tired of me being a whining lame-o that he’s cutting me off before I can even muster my breathless complaints at him?

I should have known better.  He of The Eternal Patience doesn’t get annoyed with his Panic Attack-y wife.  He of The Eternal Patience was simply answering a question I didn’t hear over the roar of my rapid inhalations.  A question that the lady who ownes the front stoop that I was Freaking Out upon had asked, apparently concerned about the local runner girl who seemed to (be injured/have fallen ill/ have DIED DEAD) in her front yard.  Did I need some water, she wanted to know?  Zack assured her that no, it’s okay.  We were pretty close to home, and we’d be fine.  I was just really, really tired.  The Lady lingered at her front door, even after we assured her that I was fine, looking at me with the sad pitiful look of a woman who believes she is possibly witnessing some sort of prehistoric spousal abuse*.

It wasn’t long after that particular brand of public humiliation that I mustered up enough recovery gumption to get myself up off her stoop and run again**.  Here’s hoping Thursday isn’t one of the Bad Days.

*If she only knew the truth.  However much it looks like my fantastically fit husband is torturing me by making me run around the neighborhood 3 nights a week, the truth is really the reverse.  How miserable is it that I drag him along with me, forcing him to say nice things to me every time I get a little short of breath?  I really gotta work on this panic attack thing.

**Once I had a panic attack while running and walked the whole rest of the route instead of running it.  I guess I was afraid that I would fail again if I tried to run again, so I just never tried to run again.  It took an emotional Act of Congress to get me to put on those shoes and get out the door when the time came for my next run.  I was terrified that I was going to try again and fail again and that, I don’t know, I’d be embarrassed to death?  Since then, I’ve made a really conscious effort to keep running after I regain composure from any incidents.  It’s helped restore some feeling of accomplishment to the runs during which my legs feel like lead and every step grows more and more difficult.  That’s why I ran again after snotting and crying all over that lady’s front yard.  That and because I felt the overwhelming urge to show her that I really wasn’t dying, just in case she’s the worrying type.