It’s what every runner fears. The moment in a race when your body suddenly decides it hates you. Your lungs feel like they’re wrapped tightly in cellophane or your legs feel like you have glue slathered on the bottom of your shoes making every step a struggle. Or sometimes, you feel a combination of both at the same time.

The wall. The ever-dreaded wall.

I hit the wall this week. But it isn’t the wall you’re probably envisioning me hitting on another hot Florida run. This week, I hit the wall of life.

If you think of life like a bathtub, the water in mine has slowly been creeping up dangerously close to the edge, ready to spill over onto the bathroom tiles at any given moment. Like all of you, I have a vast number of things I’ve been juggling, managing, committed to (over-committed to) and surviving lately. Wash cloths, rubber duckies and other bathtub-related metaphors for life’s demands have been dive-bombing into my tub the past two weeks, and the water finally started overflowing in a walk-in clinic in Chicago on Wednesday.

I’ve been on the road traveling 7 out of the past 8 days. When I arrived in Chicago this week, it was 62 degrees at lunchtime and I was in heaven. I could hardly wait to finish my long days of meetings and run. Chicago is and will always be a city I naturally associate with running. Like a song you hear that always reminds you of a specific time in your life, Chicago always makes me think of running.

Chicago is …

Where I first considered the possibility of training for an endurance race after talking to a group of marathon runners.

Where I ran my first marathon.

Where I experienced running for charity and how miles can change everything.

Where I ran my most recent marathon.

Where I ran my fastest marathon.

Where I ran my first (BQ) Boston Qualifying marathon.

Where I ran in ankle deep snow for the first time.

Where I ran my coldest run ever and upon returning to my hotel thought I was going to need to seek out a doctor for frostbite until I ran my fingers under hot water and realized, I was, in fact, going to survive. #hypochondriac

Where I was completely transformed by the ability to do things I once thought were impossible.

So being in Chicago for four days this week and NOT running was disappointing. Unsettling. Unnatural. But it was necessary.

On Wednesday evening, I visited a walk-in clinic because I’d been bitten by a spider right before leaving for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Half Marathon last week and it was getting worse, not better. I developed a hard, red bump on my chest from the bite where the strap of my sports bra would sit. It hurt to the touch and I literally thought I was going to go crazy if it didn’t stop hurting. To compound matters, I also had an issue under my right arm due to an ingrown hair (thank you sweaty Florida runs). So I found myself on the doctor’s table getting poked and needled and scalpeled and squeezed.

My first question was obviously, “When can I run?” The doctor’s response crushed my spirit: You need to wait at least four days.

What? But I will not be in Chicago by the time I can run again.

When she left the room, I started sobbing. And I couldn’t stop. This poor nurse practitioner walked in during the middle of my nervous breakdown and she must have thought I was a complete whack job. There I was, in pain from my two little skin injuries, feeling sorry for myself and uttering, “I’m … a … runner … (sob) … and I can’t … (sob) … run for four days.”

Now, I’d have to be a lunatic to not realize how utterly ridiculous, melodramatic and completely void of real perspective that was and must have seemed. But it wasn’t really about running or my wounds. Everything had caught up to me … and the tub spilled over in that silly moment on the walk-in clinic table. All the travel, lack of sleep, buying a new home in a matter of 24 hours that won’t be ready until next year (more on that later), work, stress, a never-ending to-do list … BAM! POW!

There it was. The wall.

Just like with running, all we can do in life is the best we can do. We aren’t miracle workers, even though we try to be. We aren’t superheroes, even though some days it seems like we are. Sometimes, we hit the wall before we latch our rope to it and start climbing up and over it.

Tomorrow I will conquer the wall. Today, I’m just going to hang out at the bottom and take a breath before I begin the climb.

When you hit the wall in running or in life, how do you break through it? If you’ve ever had a bad spider bite, what did you do to get it to heal?