Reminiscing About Running

Today is unofficially Ankle Surgery Eve, and I have mixed feelings. While I am eager to get over the constant pain of a severed tendon and limping all over town in a boot, I also know the finality of my running life will come to a close tomorrow. I have been swimming every morning at 5 am, and can I just say, Why do people get up at 4:00 to drive to a place where no one talks in a YMCA pool, and the only excitement comes if someone from the night before left a diving toy on the pool bottom. The scenery never changes in lap swimming, and counting the little blue tiles that form the line on the pool bottom ranks up there with watching a car rust. But I digress . . .

In the weeks since I tore my posterior tibial tendon (PTT), I have been reminiscing a lot about how I began running, the places I have run, and the many memories associated with thousands of runs in my life. Beaches, mountains, low desert, high desert, flat lands, next to quiet streams, fast-rushing rivers, and in all kinds of neighborhoods. My mind stretched back to my childhood, where I grew up in a middle classed neighborhood in a two bedroom bungalow at the end of Virginia Street. It was next to a small forest that was eventually cleared out, but it made for a fun place to explore - and run.

We lived two miles from Potter Elementary School, and believe it or not, we did not have buses to get us to and from school, so we had to do what seems like a fantasy to many today. We walked. Rain, wind, snow, steaming hot or below zero, we hoofed it to and from school every day. Being fascinated and inquisitive, I wondered how many steps it would take to get home every day. Sometime in fourth grade I began to count my steps, walking at first, then running a little, then a lot, always trying to best my previous day's total. I used to come in and exclaim to my mother how I had come home in the fewest steps ever, and she always did the proper mom thing and showed her excitement about my major distance/step accomplishment, every time.

We had Zawol's Market, a quick five blocks away. I could run to Mike Blackburn's house in less than a minute. The Standard gas station had a cold water fountain, and I would stop in for a swig before heading down Davison Road to Averill,  dodging the occasional rabid neighborhood dog. Hitting the crosswalk on a green light was cause for celebration, because I did not have to break stride. Then I made it to the home stretch, and saw the house, picking up my speed for a dash to the kitchen, where my mother would be there, I am sure awaiting the report of my new two mile land speed record.

I ran through elementary school, loving whenever we had running days in PE. My favorite day was the running of the 600 yard dash. I was so disappointed it was only 600 yards. I do not remember the 600 much, but he did say I was the fastest one year. Mr. Hackett did let me run a mile once. I think he tired of my incessant begging to run a mile, so he sent me out to run a mile. To this day I do not know if it was one mile or four. I only know I ran that day for a long time from Averill to Dexter Avenues until every group in grades 3-6 finished the 600 yard dash.

When we moved to the country in seventh grade, we had something new - space. We had a huge yard, a huge forest, and another two mile distance to my new junior high school. We also had buses. What a treat to ride the bus to school. The only down side was that we were the first to get picked up and we drove forever to pick up everyone else, and we would get to school just before the first bell. I did not and still to this day do not like getting anywhere at the last minute. So every once in awhile I would go down the street, and if the weather was nice, I would run to school and always beat our bus - and most every other bus.

I don't know why I enjoyed running everywhere when everyone else walked. When our family of seven would go shopping or anywhere, I always got in trouble for running way ahead of the family. I reasoned that you could see so much more if you ran. Besides, walking took far too much time to get anywhere. Running was and still is a way to get from point A to point B quicker, leaving more time to enjoy something else. Even as high school principal, I have enjoyed the 300 yards between our two buildings, running most every day downhill to the K-8 building (all 220 steps, with a PR of 181). One little boy saw me one day and his mother told him I was the "running principal". No greater compliment, IMHO.

Even though I was fast in school, Tom Shepherd was faster, running a 4:20 mile. My fastest was in the 4;40-5:05 range all the time, but I was into sports like basketball, baseball, golf and girls, so running did take a mini vacation until college, where I went to a school, Saginaw Valley State, that had a wide open campus, and space to run. It was the same year, 1970, that Jim Ryun ran a 3:51 mile in HIGH SCHOOL, for goodness' sake! I was out running my feet off, trying to get my time down below 4:35, but to no avail.

I have many other memories to share another day, but today was just a chance for me to get these thoughts out on the keyboard. I think that if I had grown up in Kenya I probably would have fit right in to the culture, because I loved to run anywhere, everywhere, and if I had to run to get food for the family, I believe I could have done it, enjoying each mile along the way. One of the things I try to embed in the runners I do coach is not necessarily short-term, like a PR or a medal. I want them to take time to enjoy this thing, this gift God has given us. The ability to run, the freedom that comes with enjoying what you experience along the road, beach, trail, or street, is unmatched.

May every step you take be a memory that you savor.

The Day the Distance Runner Died

Like Don McLean’s haunting song from the 70s, April 16 could easily be retitled, “The Day the Distance Runner Died.”  While I have not died physically, the events of the past few weeks have led me to the sober conclusion that my reality as a lifelong distance runner has come to an abrupt and unceremonial end. The ribbons, trophies, plaques and pictures in my office are now reminders of the end of an era. The euphoric joy of a ten mile run in the rain, the liberating feeling of running along the Carolinas' shorelines, the hundreds of trails, mountains, rivers and even deserts that these feet have glided over will glide no more.

It started back in the fall of 2011, when I noticed my race pace had dropped almost a minute per mile in a 15k race I had run just a year earlier. The hills were a little painful, as my ankle joint was stiff, taking longer to “wake up” each run. My good friend John Spikes even posted earlier that I was slowing down and my wife Kathy was speeding up. My self-diagnosis was that maybe I was experiencing some early arthritis, so I just plugged on.

Two weeks later, I strained a right calf muscle, which is always a nuisance to any runner. I spent the month of October icing and resting my leg. I was busy coaching our school’s cross country team, so it was an inconvenience not being out there running with my runners, something I have enjoyed for more than 25 years. I was strong enough to run a Thanksgiving Day 5k, although at 25:30, the pace was better than the 15k pace but much slower than earlier in the year. It was a small victory to race again after the calf strain.

The top of my ankle was still stiff through the past mild East Tennessee winter, but my pace was still dropping. I was now at a 9:00 pace, and easy runs were more like 9:30/mile. We signed up for our annual pilgrimage to Charleston to do the Cooper River Bridge 10k on March 31, but my ankle began to bother me more and more. I saw my orthopedic doctor, who said my posterior tibial tendon (PTT) was stretched out, and so I took almost 3 weeks off from running.

I usually celebrate birthdays with a celebratory five mile minimum run. In 2001, I ran 24 miles on my birthday, but that was in marathon training mode. However, in 2012, there would be no birthday run as I honored the doctor’s orders for a few more days.

We reluctantly and sadly decided not to run the Bridge Run, but we did run at the lnearby ake, and I had worked up to almost 5 miles during that first week of being able to run. It was not fast or pretty. Kathy noted that I still ran with a slight limp in my stride, although my ankle did not feel sore, just stiff.

Our school had a track meet on April 3 at a local school, so I decided to drive over and watch our kids run. I saw our discus team warming up, but I noticed none of them were using a spin technique. I walked into the cage and demonstrated a basic 360 spin in very slow motion. The third time around, as I was showing the proper disc ‘explosion’ and release, my ankle popped, and after I fell to the ground, I announced, “That is NOT the proper follow-through”. I knew immediately it was the tendon. I could feel a huge knot form next to the bone. I hobbled over to Laura Weisberg, our team’s volunteer trainer (Thank God for these wonderful professionals who donate their time!), and she had me come into her practice the next morning before dawn to get it looked at and for some PT.

The next morning, she massaged it, iced it, and wrapped it. My ortho had already put a call in to my ankle specialist for a referral on my ankle, but my physical therapist called her to get me in the same day. Again, my gratitude goes out to her for “fast tracking” me to the specialist, who examined the ankle and ordered an MRI. Her pre-diagnosis was at least a partial tear of the PTT and a possible stress fracture of the talus bone. Somehow, the possibility of never running again was not a reality as long as it may only be a partial tear. After all, I partially tore a hamstring and a piriformis before, and I was fine after a few weeks in both cases.

Today, April 16, I sat in the examination room, awaiting the doctor and the results from the MRI. She came in and smiled, asking if I wanted the good news first. I was halfway hoped that she was only joking.  I learned first that I did not have a stress fracture in my ankle. Then she delivered the bad news: my posterior tibial tendon was totally torn – in several places, much like a tire you see by the side of the highway.

I know that my doctor knew how much I love running. She stood outside the door with my papers for a long time before coming in. I wonder if it is hard for her to find the right words to tell a person that their life’s joyful expression will no longer be possible?  I know that both my ortho and physical therapist, both sent texts to “keep this man running at all costs”, and “this man needs to run”.

However well-meaning their notes were, it could not have made the surgeon's  delivery of this news easy. After she said my PTT was torn, she looked at me and eventually said the words “no running”. The new tendon would be taken from the big toe. It is less than a third the size of the PTT, and therefore cannot hold up under the impact of distance running. Phrases like “no more marathons, half marathons, races and those long runs” all fell like small bombshells into my psyche.

The shattering sound of my spirit being crushed made it hard to really hear all the details of the post-surgery timetable, so I may be a little off in my actual re-telling of what will follow my surgery.

As she talked, I was having a hard time absorbing her words - no running. I will undergo surgery May 24. I will have two screws placed in my heel to turn my pronated foot into a more supine position due to the smaller FDL tendon grafted in from the big toe. I will be totally off my feet for 2 weeks, then 6 more on crutches or  a knee walker (that will be some fun. Maybe I can learn to "surf" with it!). After that, we will evaluate and be in a boot and transition into a shoe over the next month or two while undergoing therapy. After 12 months of therapy, I should be walking pain-free in shoes full-time.

The question of light running comes into play after six more months to strengthen the new but smaller tendon. The surgeon said that I should be able to do a light run of 2-3 miles, slowly building up strength in the supporting muscles and ligaments. Two or three miles at the most, and not every day or even every other day. What used to be a mild warm up will now be my destination distance.

No distance running. To me, it is like telling me to stop loving my wife, my kids, and my two grandkids. It has now been a few days, and I am still a littlenumb. I do not feel anger nor have I gone through much denial, yet a large part of me is grieving. It feels like I have lost a good friend, someone who has been with me in my most transparent moments. Running is so organic and yet so complex. I have created, debated, imagined, fought wars, and psychoanalyzed almost everything while on a long distance run. There is a clarity that occurs when one is on a long run that I have not equaled in any other activity. No running are two words that hurt in a strange, indescribable way.

And yet God knows I am thankful for allowing me to run 28 years after having dual knee surgery in 1984, when I had the meniscus removed from my right knee.  The doctor told me then not to run again. But I eventually did, after two years off, and since then I ran 14 marathons and hundreds of races, notching almost 40,000 miles since then. This time is different, though. No other supporting ligaments or muscles are in the ankle to assist this newer, tinier tendon from my big toe.

After 66,052 recorded miles, 16 marathons, countless half marathons, 10 milers, 10k, 15k, 25k, 30k, 8k, and 5k races, runs over mountains, in many states on hundreds of miles of sidewalks,  trails and highways, I am told “no running”. How could two words carry such devastating and cutting power?

At present, I am walking in a boot and praying for a miracle. Like Eric Liddell, I feel God's pleasure when I run, so I am again begging God to perform another miracle and allow me to run after I am recovered. For now, it is time to get into the mindset that I need the May 24th surgery to go well, to rehab my foot religiously, and to try to find that new “thing” that will fit into the slot where my joyful and therapeutic runs took place. I can swim and bike, but neither provides the “high” I get every run I take. Drinkers have 'Happy Hour'; runners like me have always had a ‘Happy Hour’ out on a trail, road, mountain or beach. I am hoping to spend some more ‘Happy Hours’ out there sometime in 2013. If you see me, I will be the one with bugs on his teeth, unable to close my mouth due to excessive and continuous smiling. If, despite all efforts I am unable to run again, I hope you will still see me with a smile on my face, because it means God has replaced my deep love of running with something new that provides me with joy and fulfillment.

But for now, I wait for the impending surgery, the 18 months of rehab, and the possibility of maybe jogging 2-3 miles. The words, "no running" are still not part of my new vocabulary, but it appears that the distance runner has died.

I still mean it when I say Happy Running.