Orange isn't really my color, anyhow

I will not be running the Boston Marathon.  It hurts too much when I run long distances, and after I run long distances.
You shouldn't run with pain, and so... I am not going to run with pain.
It only took me a twenty miler and a ten miler and me biting off all my fingernails and eating Advil regularly and icing routinely to come to this conclusion, but we all know that I am often a little slow on the uptake.
The issue I have currently is being perceived as a pussy.  My ten miler yesterday was at a good clip given the ascent, and my heart rate was pretty low.  All signs indicate a potential nice marathon time in April.  My ankle, however, is still swollen and the longer the distance that I run, the more limited my mobility in that ankle which causes me to run a bit off kilter and puts stress on the opposite leg (not to mention by mile 20 the pain is incredible).
Why am I still trying to defend my decision?  Who am I trying to convince?  Why do I feel that people will think I'm just taking a pass on this?  I created a whole vacation based around this marathon.  I've run nine of them in a row.  I've been in and out of physio for months and I have come back from IT band issues and a rotated hip: I'm not coming back from this in time to have a healthy, pain free race in April.
I think I am trying to convince myself and my addictive personality.  I am A-type in certain parts of my life (the parts that interest me).  Biting off all my nails (to the quick, yet) on Saturday night is telling.
I'm not running it.  And I'm not running 23 miles on Sunday.  I might bring my running shoes to work this week and leave them there in order to not run 23 miles on Sunday.
Anyways, all of this is rather banal and unimportant, but what I would really like to shed a light on is The Lost Massey Lectures, which I started reading last night: namely Paul Goodman's The Moral Ambiguity of America.  I had to check the date on the lecture because it seemed, oddly enough, as though it was written in recent years.
Sadly, though, there were elements of hope because of societal changes he was witnessing.
Yeah.  We learned a lot from Vietnam, didn't we.