Am I insane? My long time running buddy Cathy was startled to see me at our 8:00am Boot Camp on Saturday. “Aren’t you running Bay to Breakers tomorrow?” Implication being, “why are you here — shouldn’t you be resting up for the 7.6 mile run?” Eminently reasonable question. But for some unfathomable reason I am compelled to go to Boot Camp — then to run a long race the next day. And worst of all, I haven’t trained for either!

There’s something about cavalier-ly saying “Oh sure I’m running tomorrow” like it’s no big deal… and of course it’s fine that I’m at Boot Camp today even though the Voice of Sanity in my head whispers “What the hell are you thinking? You’re 53! You sit on your butt all day at work! You haven’t run more than 3 miles in 6 years! After the last two Boot Camps you were hardly able to walk up or down stairs because you were so insanely sore! How do you expect to do a race tomorrow?”

Poor little Voice of Sanity — she always gets shouted down by my alter ego Miss False Confidence who screams “Just Go For It !!!! So what if you’re not prepared!!!! What’s the worst that could happen?”

Are there other people like me out there? With this same problem of weekend warrior hubris? Other middle aged wanna-be athletes who are trying to pretend they are younger, fitter, more resilient than they obviously are? Is there some kind of cure for this? Oddly, I hope not.