The Still in the Race Podcast

The calendar has changed, and my sixty-first birthday is in the rearview mirror, and another year has slid by.  The original challenge of working to make a difference has been replaced with trying to find small improvements in my surgically repaired left knee. In many ways, this was the most fitting way for this journey to end, and I find myself in the most familiar of places, starting over.  And, in a way that can be difficult to understand, even for myself, I relish these moments even as they frustrate me. 

The problem with living with a trained medical professional who spent much of her career in orthopedics is that she can read the results of your MRI.   Darkness had set in when she pulled up my files online and began reviewing the results.  I sat quietly, reading a book, pretending that I wasn’t interested, waiting for the diagnosis.

For the first time in several months, I know what the next couple of weeks will bring. 

I know how to manage my current situation.  Running a good time is off the table.  I can’t train the way that I want to. I need to shut down for two weeks, get back on the road for a week, and then shut down for another week before the race.  My time will suffer, but if I can slow down and maintain discipline, it still could be a successful day.

We are always on a schedule, evaluating meals and watching the weather.  Last weekend I went to the extreme and slipped in a run between tornado watches.  We have to carve out time, and that doesn’t happen without support from whoever you are sharing life with.

I proclaimed victory far too early.  Forty years of never quitting regardless of how sick it left me wasn’t overcome by one day of common sense. Unfortunately, my moment of achieving wisdom was little more than an aberration, and I am still the same person that I have always been.

As I run, there is plenty of time during a five-mile trek, and I found myself reflecting.  More specifically, reflecting on the fifteen-year-old version of myself in the seventies. 

It was a big week.  At least it was a big week in the way that I measure things. 

How I approached that day of loading a rented van and racing to make as many trips as possible would make no sense to anyone that didn't run, or for that matter, anyone who was a casual runner.  However, as I debated whether to reveal myself, I realized that it would make perfect sense to any life-long runner.  So, with some reluctance - my notes from that last day at the River House.

It was one of those days when I had to run.  Not because of what was on the schedule or some deep inner need, but rather what was on Mother Nature's schedule.